


Less Lonely Together

by onlybylaura



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: AND THEM SHOUTING AT EACH OTHER, Canon Compliant, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Mutual Pining, Unresolved Sexual Tension, WHILE ISOLATED, and no smut, forcebond stands strong, honestly it's just a lot of pain and hurt, i have zero regrets about any of my choices, it's angsty, it's just me drafting episode IX really, my life has spiraled in endless control after i started drafting this fic, the worst slowburn you'll ever read i'm sorry, there's no comfort here, this will strike right into the feels i WARN you, which is funny never thought there was fic with no smut but there you go
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-02
Updated: 2018-05-11
Packaged: 2019-03-12 18:24:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 45
Words: 45,274
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13553022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onlybylaura/pseuds/onlybylaura
Summary: After the battle of Crait, Rey and Kylo Ren were separated once again, thinking their destinies are sealed on opposite sides of the battle for the galaxy once and for all.But when an old enemy returns, Rey and Kylo must put their differences aside and learn not just to survive, but to live.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hey! This is my first Reylo fanfiction. You can find me online on my [ tumblr ](https://www.onlybylaura.tumblr.com) or on twitter as @laurampohl. You're welcome to say hi, and I'd love to hear what you think of the fic!  
> ___________________________________

Kylo Ren had never felt as alone as now that he was Supreme Leader.

  
Before, he used to have his own quarters, his own ship, his own privacy. Now everywhere he went there were at least ten people following him. They were either asking for instructions or orders or plans, and he did not feel like he could answer any of those. And even when he had dozens of people following him, there was that harrowing loneliness he never got used to.

  
Luke Skywalker had escaped. Rey had escaped.

  
The rebellion was still alive, and he was supposed to crush it. And he couldn’t even bring himself to give enough orders for pursuit.

 

The Star Destroyer floated through space, and all he could feel was emptiness, reaching out for him once more.

  
He thought killing Snoke would do it. It should have been the end of his torment, the end of the line, where he could finally become who he was meant to be all along. That was what Snoke had wanted, all those years ago. That was what he had wanted, to fall in line with Darth Vader’s vision.

  
It was not meant to be this way.

  
Anger was not enough for him to describe it. Luke Skywalker had tormented him, teased him, and he wasn’t wrong. The anger was not enough. The anger at being refused and shunted, the anger he didn’t repress. He knew Jedi masters were supposed to be in control of his emotions, and even Sith lords did not let anything show.

  
He was the master of his anger, but it never looked like it.

  
“Supreme Leader?” Someone asked, an hesitant voice in the darkness of his thoughts.

  
He turned to see one of his commanders. He did not know her name. He did not know the name of most people in the base or on the First Order. With him so hesitant, Snoke had decided to keep him apart, to hone his skill, to train him. Even the Knights of Ren seemed like a forgotten and distant memory now.

  
Kylo Ren was nothing but a shadow of himself, unsure of his next steps.

  
The woman blinked, waiting for his response. At least it wasn’t Hux. He could barely stand Hux now, the way he always stood proud and slightly condescending, as if he never failed before.

  
Kylo knew he thought he wasn’t fit to be the Supreme Leader. But Kylo would prove them all wrong.

  
He had to.

  
“Head for the base,” he finally said. “Do not stop. We’ll plot a course of action when we get there.”

  
The woman nodded, leaving quickly, her steps hurried on the base. He stood in the corridor for a long while. He waited for some sign of his previous connection, of a tug in the right direction inside him.

  
But where there had been light before, he could feel nothing.

  
Not even dark.

  
There was only emptiness.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! This is my first Reylo fanfiction. You can find me online on my [ tumblr ](https://www.onlybylaura.tumblr.com) or on twitter as @laurampohl. You're welcome to say hi, and I'd love to hear what you think of the fic!  
> 

Rey thought she’d be able to feel something after the battle. She was wrong.

Her mind was filled to the brink with exhaustion, and even her connection to the Force was wavering. It was like the world had felt something was wrong, and she didn’t know how she could begin to fix it.

Her broken lightsaber lay next to her bed, a constant reminder of everything that was wrong.

Her room in Coruscant was small. She preferred it that way. She had exchanged her usual clothes for something different, hoping to be inconspicuous among the crowds. For some moments, she almost believed she could be. She’d never seen a city that big or that bright, the whole planet dazzling with metal and bright colors. Spaceships flew among the buildings, and all types of people came and went in the streets. Leia was sure that was the best place for them to rest – Coruscant was the home to the Senate, and easy to reach. The Resistance could hide among their numbers while they healed.

There were only thirty or so people left. It was not nearly enough. It would never be enough. Rey knew that, in the back of her mind, that doubt was eating her away and would turn her skin raw.

In the early morning, she entirely gave up on the idea of sleep in her room, and left without telling anyone.

She understood that they needed her – that they needed hope and they needed the Jedi. She thought so at the beginning, too. It was her fate, her destiny, right there, staring at her. She must become a Jedi. She must use the Force to restore balance to the galaxy.

And she’d failed. Luke had failed. Luke, who she’d thought invincible, had still failed in his own way.

Rey hated to be reminded that they were all human.

The Millennium Falcon was empty when she got there. She liked it best that way. She loved Chewie, Leia, Finn and Poe now that she’d met him. But there was a longing she felt inside her heart, something she could only listen when everything around her was silent.

She didn’t want to think about the consequences of failing. She didn’t want to think about her fear of reaching out to the connection, and finding it there. She’d felt comfort before in Ahch-To, when she was alone and not sure what to believe. When she had been disappointed and not known how to fight.

In a way, Rey thought she’d get over this. She thought she could live her life, fight for the Rebellion, end the first order. Do what she was supposed to be doing. Give people hope.

But she’d seen her heroes fall. She didn’t know if she’d manage to keep going, or if it was just waiting long enough for a moment where she’d fall, too.

The Millennium Falcon gave her peace.

She walked over to one of the Falcon’s many compartments. Inside, there were old books.

The books she’d stolen from the Jedi temple. Luke hadn’t seen her steal them, but she was scared he was about to do something drastic. So when she left, she took them with her.

She took one of them, opening its pages. They were frail and dusty, and the smell rose up to her ears, crinkling her nose. She turned the page of one of them carefully, trying not to break it. Most of them were in code, in a language she didn’t really understand or could read. Tried as she might, there was something that kept wandering her concentration off the page.

She turned to the illustrations instead. This was the easier part — first there was balance, the Force itself. And then there came the original Sith, who brought the Dark side to the Galaxy, controlling and manipulating the Force to their manner. The species scattered, but there were still rumors of their power, and how they would rise to strike that balance down. The Jedi Order was so old and still kept to the light side of the Force, trying to fight darkness with light, driving it away, but never succeeding it whole.

The Chosen One was supposed to change it, but there wasn’t balance. Snoke had still risen from the ashes of the Empire and proved once again that there could be no such thing as only light and dark. She felt helpless. The more she tried, the more she felt the sentiment sneak in — the one scenario she couldn’t face. What if she couldn’t defeat Ben?

What if she couldn’t bring him back into the light?

Could she even defeat him?

And that’s when she felt the bond tug.

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! This is my first Reylo fanfiction. You can find me online on my [ tumblr ](https://www.onlybylaura.tumblr.com) or on twitter as @laurampohl. You're welcome to say hi, and I'd love to hear what you think of the fic!  
> Kudos and bookmarks water the author's crops and keep her children fed.

He shouldn’t have tried the bond.

He should not have tugged, he should not see if it was there. But its nature made him curious, from the first time it showed up. She had shot him – she wasn’t wrong – but he hadn’t understood at first.

Now he knew it was Snoke’s doing, the tying of the two strings together. One light, one dark. All for his purpose.

Kylo thought that they were special. He was special, being able to talk to her from that distance. He flexed his hands, just as if he could feel his fingers again on hers.

When he turned inside the throne room, he could see her there.

She was sitting down, too. He couldn’t see her surroundings. It was like talking to a ghost, but he could see her clearly. She had circles under her eyes, like she hadn’t slept in a whole week.

Neither had he.

“What are you doing?” She asked.

He didn’t know how to answer that. He knew what he was supposed to answer. He was going after them, the rebels, and hunting them down one by one. One by one he’d fight all of them.

Make sure he burned his past to the ground.

“I thought it was gone,” she said after some time. “The bond.”

“I’m not sure how it works,” he confessed.

She rose one eyebrow. He could see her anger, her jaw set. But her eyes were clear and sincere.

He kept getting drawn to them, time after time.

“You won’t win,” she said. “Give up now. We’ll go after you. You couldn’t defeat Luke.”

“Luke is dead,” he said. He felt it in his bones. He knew she could feel it too. His old master, gone.

Luke had enraged him. He told Kylo he was sorry, but it wasn’t enough. It did not change things then. It wouldn’t change things now.

“The Resistance is dead, Rey,” he said, as calmly and collected as he could. “If it’s not now, it’ll be soon. You still have time.”

He looked at her. But then she shook her head, and the bond was gone.

He missed her.

How could he miss her? He wasn’t supposed to miss anybody. He wasn’t supposed to miss anything. He was now the Supreme Leader of the First Order. Luke Skywalker was dead, and so was the Resistance.

The spark of the rebellion was finally out.

Kylo Ren had everything he ever wanted.

The problem was that it wasn’t enough.

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hey! This is my first Reylo fanfiction. You can find me online on my [ tumblr ](https://www.onlybylaura.tumblr.com) or on twitter as @laurampohl. You're welcome to say hi, and I'd love to hear what you think of the fic!  
> 

She was glad she’d cut off before he could see her tears.

Rey didn’t want to talk to him again. He knew about her parents, and he had twisted the whole world around them.

Nothing.

She was nothing.

The worst part is that Ben wasn’t wrong. She’d shut down her memories, expertly, tried to hide the pain from herself. She was good at that. Hiding the pain. Pretending it was never there. She could fight this.

Except that this time she didn’t want to.

“Rey? What are you doing out here?” Finn asked as he came in.

Rey forced out a smile. “I just missed it. I missed…”

“Han,” Finn completed, though it wasn’t exactly Han she was missing. “I miss him too.”

They sat side by side. He offered his hand to her, and she took it. She remembered trying to get it off for the first time, the other lost boy she’d met. He never knew what he was doing.

But this was a different Finn. Just as she had changed on Ahch-To, he had changed as well. This Finn was confident, he carried himself more proudly. He spoke out at meetings of the Resistance, and he was always where he was needed.

“We’ll have a meeting soon,” he said, squeezing her hand. “You should come. Leia would want you there.”

“I don’t know if I’m ready.”

Finn met her eyes. “None of us are. We suffered heavy losses. But Luke sacrificed himself so we could keep going—so we could light the way again. We can’t give up now.”

Rey knew he was right. Of course he was right. She’d give everything to have the confidence he’d gained, everything to stand as proudly. She may have found her way with the Force, but with everything else, she had failed.

She was so sure about Ben turning.

So, so sure. She saw him clearly that night—him by her side, fighting against Snoke. It was everything she’d hoped. She could make sure Ben would come back to the light. There was conflict inside him, and she only needed to go to him. She only needed to offer her hand.

But he hadn’t taken it.

Her arrogance had been too great. She hadn’t heeded Luke’s advice. He had warned her, and yet she ignored. He had failed, but she would not. What an idiot she was, believing she could change the whole fate of the Galaxy just like that. Believing she was enough.

Finn got up, and he pulled her forward. She was glad she had his hand, still. A friend to help her up.

“Thanks,” she said.

“You’ll be okay,” Finn said, a smile on his features. “We’ll all be okay.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! This is my first Reylo fanfiction. You can find me online on my [ tumblr ](https://www.onlybylaura.tumblr.com) or on twitter as @laurampohl. Leave comments and kudos!  
> 

It had been a week already, and Kylo Ren hadn’t moved from the First Order base.

A week where he was supposed to be hunting the rebels, but they were nowhere to be found. The First Order scouts had looked everywhere, getting intel on abandoned rebel bases from the time of the Empire, and everywhere they looked, there was nothing but shadows. People who were interrogated had nothing to say. Alliances turned fast, and the rebels seemed to be completely gone.

Except Kylo could still feel them. He knew them. They weren’t going to be defeated that easily.

And meanwhile, Kylo did the only thing he knew how to do—he trained. It was almost like nothing had changed after Snoke. He kept his training routine, he studied the old books and texts he knew by heart now. There was only so much he could learn from books, and by now he’d learned it all.

He was deep in another Jedi text from the time of the Republic when Hux announced himself.

Kylo frowned at him.

“Supreme Leader,” Hux said, his voice haughty. Kylo hated this tone. It was like the man was trying his best to hide his condescension, but not enough that he didn’t feel like it wasn’t there. “The new ships have arrived for inspection. Should we send them out for scouting? We have heard rumors of the old rebel base of Endor being reused.”

Kylo couldn’t care less about the rebel base. He knew it was what he was supposed to want, but his heart just wasn’t in it anymore. There was this doubt, this shadow inside his mind and his heart.

He was so sure that killing Snoke was the solution. Burning the rebels and the first order and the Sith and the Jedi, let them all burn. Let them die. Let everything else die.

But all he could think about was his extended hand. The extended hand she hadn’t taken, and betrayal in her eyes.

He hadn’t betrayed her. He had wanted her by his side.

“Supreme Leader?” Hux said again, calling him back

Kylo looked up. “Yes. Send them to Endor.”

“Anything else, my lord?”

Kylo waited. There was the tone of mockery. The tone he was knowing so well, because he had no idea what he was doing. He did not know what his next steps were supposed to be. All his life, he’d reached for something.

But midway, he’d forgotten what that was.

“Get out of my way,” Kylo said, and Hux obliged, a smug smile still across his face.

 


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! This is my first Reylo fanfiction. You can find me online on my [ tumblr ](https://www.onlybylaura.tumblr.com) or on twitter as @laurampohl. You're welcome to say hi, and I'd love to hear what you think of the fic so far!  
> 

For a week, everything was calm. Coruscant was the perfect hideout—big enough that their numbers weren’t seen, and no one drew attention to themselves.

But Rey wished she could do something.

In the Resistance, no one knew what her job was. When she’d first arrived, she’d had to find Luke and get her training. But now, there was nothing holding her there. Poe and Finn were always engaged in planning and talking and always were invited to meetings. Leia was too busy reorganizing what was left of their group that Rey hadn’t really talked to her. Chewbacca was nice, but he was also busy with repairs with the Falcon. The only one who didn’t seem to mind her company was BB-8.

But in the middle of the bustling, energetic city, Rey had never felt more alone.

She’d taken to wondering the city during the night. Poe had warned her about staying off the beaten track, and she kept a low profile. She drove a small ship, but she missed the high speeds of the air and piloting. This was one of the things she’d enjoyed the most, and now, it seemed like she had even less freedom to do it.

She missed the open air. She missed training with Luke. She missed the porgs, as irritating as they were.

She missed something else, too, but she didn’t want to name it. Giving it a name was too powerful, and she didn’t want to think about it.

“Rey?” Someone called her name in the corridor of the hideout. She turned, and there was a girl, smaller than she was, round cheeks and black hair. “You’re Rey.”

It was more statement than question. Then Rey recognized the girl. She was the one who Finn had saved. He had talked about her—the name was Rose.

“Yes, I am,” she said, and when the girl smiled, Rey couldn’t help but do it too. “You must be Rose. I didn’t know you were out of the medical bay yet.”

“I just got out,” she replied. “Have you seen Finn?”

Rey’s smile faltered. “I think he’s in one of the meetings with Poe.”

Rose smiled. “Great. That’s good. How many survived?”

Rey fell into silence. Rose’s smile broke, her cheeks paling.

“Not that many, huh?” The girl said quietly.

Rey knew she had to respond. That was what being a Jedi meant—she had to give people hope. Not just people who had only heard legends, but people right in front of her, people wanting to believe there was something to fight for.

But all she could think of was her broken lightsaber, and the fact that she didn’t know if she belonged here at all.

“It’ll be okay,” Rose said, as if sensing her discomfort. “I’m sure General Organa has a plan. And we’re going to make it through the night.”

Rose smiled once more, and Rey was more at loss than ever.

She wished she knew what to do. As Rose was leaving, she thought something inside her was breaking. It took her a moment to realize it was the bond again.

 


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! This is my first Reylo fanfiction. You can find me online on my [ tumblr ](https://www.onlybylaura.tumblr.com) or on twitter as @laurampohl. Please leave kudos and bookmark this fic if you like it!  
> 

Kylo watched the proceedings of unloading cargo through an empty bridge as people unloaded the supplies in the new First Order base, the generals all ordering about.

He couldn’t bring himself to care.

He turned around, his cape swooshing behind me as he went back to the throne room inside the ship. He wanted to see it one last time. He had to be sure.

When he entered, he could feel there was something different.

Hux was there, waiting for him, as if guessing his thoughts. Kylo hated how Hux always seemed to guess, always wanted to be ahead, a smug smile on his face and his voice high-pitched. Always so sure of Supreme Leader.

But Kylo was tired of hearing orders as much as he was tired of giving them.

“What are you doing here?” Kylo asked. “This room is off-limits to officers.”

“Just making sure everything is in order,” Hux answered. Kylo noticed how he didn’t say ‘sir’ or ‘Supreme Leader’. It was an obvious tone in his voice.

He wondered now that everyone had seen his weakness. The moment he asked to blow Skywalker and the Falcon from the sky. The moment where he’d wagered everything and still lost.

His hands balled into fists. He wished he was wearing his mask, that he hadn’t smashed it to pieces. That Snoke hadn’t ordered him to do just that.

Still he’d listened like a good dog that he was.

“Nothing is wrong here,” Kylo made sure to emphasize the words. “Leave.”

Hux did nothing.

Kylo raised his hands, using the force-choke. “Leave.”

But Hux still didn’t move, even when he was raised high in the air. That’s when Kylo felt something else entirely.

A presence shifted inside the room, like a dark planet covering the sunlight. It was strange, how the whole room changed in its atmosphere. There was darkness covering it.

But it wasn’t just darkness. It was complete absence of light.

Kylo turned, and Snoke was standing near the door, tall, his scarred face orange under the light. The face that always haunted Kylo’s dreams and nightmares. The promise that it would end the suffering.

“My young apprentice,” Snoke said. “We meet again.”

And that’s when the pain started.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! This is my first Reylo fanfiction. You can find me online on my [ tumblr ](https://www.onlybylaura.tumblr.com) or on twitter as @laurampohl. You're welcome to say hi, and I'd love to hear what you think of the fic!  
> 

There was a struggle. Rey could feel it.

It was just the smallest of tugs, the smallest of pulls. And yet, it was there.

She thought it’d been gone for good. Something Snoke had created to manipulate them both, to get them to do what he wanted. When she got to the ship, Rey thought she could turn Ben. She was so sure, so confident in her powers. She knew how he felt, she could sense it through the connection.

He was small and alone and afraid, and he didn’t know what to believe. She could turn him.

He’d killed Snoke. And when she thought they’d triumph, just as she was sure he was about to turn home, he’d made the offer.

Rey felt the tears stinging in the back of her eyes. He’d manipulated her too, then. She didn’t know if he was aware, or if it was just instinct. But he had still done it. There was no way to avoid that.

Her broken lightsaber was right in her pocket, reminding her of it.

She didn’t know if there was salvation for Ben Solo, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to try it.

But then the bong tugged again, stronger than last time, and she felt more than just the connection—she felt pain. She felt emptiness.

The same thing she was feeling.

Then she heard him scream.

Rey froze.

She could leave him there. She should leave him there. Every single time they’d met, there had been tension between them, and he’d manipulated her and called her nothing. It was her right to just leave him there to burn.

And yet she didn’t move.

Cursing herself inwardly, Rey ran to the Millennium Falcon, and before she could think twice, she was speeding away from Coruscant and following the call.

 


	9. Chapter 9

All he could feel was pain.

There was pain coursing through his body, running through his veins, every single cell overcome with the sparks of electricity. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t reach his lightsaber. He couldn’t do anything except feel it, deep within his bones.

Snoke gave it a rest, and Kylo took a deep breath.

And then it started again.

“You think you could betray me that easily?” Snoke asked, the Supreme Leader sitting in his chair, his marred face gleaming with contempt. “You think you could kill me? You think I would not see it coming?”

Every question was punctuated with another stab of pain. Kylo couldn’t deal with it, his brain shutting down, turning in on himself. All his power, all he had trained, shrunk to nothing.

Snoke held the lightsaber in his hands, toying with it as if it were nothing.

“Will you not answer?”

“Supreme—” He tried choking the words out, but he couldn’t manage them. There was the darkness coming from him again. There was the light. He didn’t understand what he was supposed to do.

He thought he had all the power to himself. He thought he could conquer his fears. He would stop everyone who manipulated and lied to him, who had made him like this.

It was time he became himself.

The pain shot up again. Kylo noticed Hux smiling in the background. The damned prick. Of course he would be happy now. Kylo wished he could choke him, but the pain in his muscles were too much.

He couldn’t even get up, squirming like a worm on the ground.

“Kylo Ren,” Snoke said slowly, the disdain in his voice clear. “I thought you’d be an apprentice to watch for. Someone worthy of the side of the Sith.”

“I am,” he said, but so small he wasn’t sure he had spoken out loud.

Maybe all he was doing was lying to himself, all this time.

“I scoped you to the darkness,” Snoke continued. “I gave you opportunity to rise above your station. I hoped you would turn from the temptation of the light.”

Snoke gave him enough space to breathe.

Kylo Ren faced his master.

“But you are weak,” Snoke said. “You are weak and undeserving. You hesitated to kill your father. You hesitated to kill your mother. You cannot let go of your past. You, a Skywalker, are not worthy of any titles.”

Kylo felt it like a stab of pain. He wasn’t sure Snoke was still attacking him. Kylo was holding himself in place, trying not to move. He did not know what he would say. He did not have a defense.

He knew he was weak. Knew the moment he’d crossed his sword through his father’s chest and regret had danced in his eyes, but he watched, endless, again and again, Han Solo falling into the abyss.

He told her about killing the past, and yet he couldn’t do it. He could never do it.

He was too weak.

He felt a tugging, deep inside the bond, and he didn’t know what to believe anymore. Maybe he was just dreaming again. Maybe it was the damn thing his mother had always been so insistent about – hope.

No hope was going to get Kylo Ren out of there.

“You could not kill me,” Snoke said, slowly getting up, “but I will kill you. And I will have a new apprentice.”

Snoke activated the sword, the familiar sound buzzing through the throne room. Snoke waved his hands. Kylo’s body raised in the air, the muscles ripping apart, shredding everything inside him, the pain unbearable. He could feel the tears stinging, the pain only growing.

“You will know Vader’s fate,” Snoke said, and then the sword cut through his right hand.

For a moment, Kylo didn’t feel anything. Then he saw his hand, chopped off, falling on the floor, his fingers still twitching as if they were attached.

Kylo screamed.

Snoke approached, swinging the lightsaber once more. Kylo knew his old master wouldn’t hesitate. There was no hesitation on the dark side. That’s what had always made his master strong and him weak.

He could never do something without thought.

When he was about to swing, something threw Snoke to the other side of the room.

The impact was full as Snoke was thrown back, the lightsaber going off. Then it zoomed all across the room, and Kylo fell to his knees, still clutching his stump. He couldn’t process the pain. His brain and body were on fire.

He thought he was hallucinating when he saw the girl, standing in the middle of the room, her hair tied back in a ponytail, her face angry.

But he didn’t have time to figure out whether it was an hallucination or not. Snoke got up, but suddenly there was blasting fire from the Stormtroopers as they came after Rey. She fought them off, wielding the light-sword with a vengeance, an ease and grace he had never acquired. She danced across the room, her footsteps light, and rained her justice upon them.

It was like watching light itself take over.

Snoke tried coming after her, but Kylo knew he could do this one thing.

Digging deep within himself, he found the balance enough to push him back – to hold him there while Rey fought the rest of the stormtroopers, and pushed Snoke so far back into the ship he felt the walls breaking. And Kylo kept pushing and pushing, and it was the only thing he could do, keeping Snoke away from Rey so he could never reach her.

He blacked out after that.


	10. Chapter 10

Rey watched as Ben slept soundly on the medical bay inside the Falcon. His breath was normal. His hand, only a stump cut clean by the lightsaber, was the only visible wound he had sustained. In his sleep, he looked peaceful.

Rey kept looking, watching the scar she’d given him.

She didn’t regret it. It had looked ugly, and she didn’t know what she was doing, but she’d felt so much anger. He’d kept her a prisoner, tortured her with his mind. She didn’t forget.

But she also couldn’t disassociate the image of the little lost boy she’d seen, scared under his uncle’s lightsaber, thinking it was the end.

No one gave him the opportunity to turn. No one reached out a hand, afraid of the darkness within.

She could feel it, even now, standing next to him. When she concentrated on the Force, she could feel the bond between them. Her side, clean. His, dark and wounded.

There was conflict, yes. But mostly conflict of her feelings. Whether she should offer her hand or just kill him. Maybe she’d be braver than Luke. Maybe she could kill him right there and then, no questions asked.

As if he sensed she was looking, he opened his eyes. There was a second of confusion, Ben frowning slightly.

“You got me out,” he said, his words so quiet Rey barely heard them. She didn’t want to look into his eyes. “I didn’t need saving.”

“Yes, you did. Or you’d be dead. Snoke would have killed you.”

“I didn’t ask to be saved,” he said, dark eyes meeting hers, hand cradling his stump.

Rey couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Or rather, she could. Because of course he’d say that. Of course he’d rather believe it.

“Well, don’t get too upset,” she finally told him. “You’ll still have plenty of opportunities to get yourself killed.”

She left for the cockpit. He took a second to follow her, his presence silent. Rey sat down in the cockpit of the Millennium Falcon. Wishing she was a hundred thousand parsecs away from this. Away from him.

She should not have saved him.

“I thought you hated me,” he said quietly. “You left.”

“Of course I left.”

“I thought that was what you wanted.”

She whirled the chair around. “No, Ben,” she said, using his real name. The first time she’d used it since she got here. It felt like a cursed word. “It was never what I wanted.”

“You could’ve come with me.”

Rey finally had to laugh. “Is that what you believe? That I wanted to rule galaxies, by your side?”

He stood quiet in the door frame. He was hunched over. She didn’t know if it was because of him or because he was standing in his father’s ship.

Han’s ship.

She could not forgive him for this yet.

“You told me I was nothing,” she said, her voice breaking. She didn’t want to break in front of him.

“It’s not what I meant.”

“It’s still what I heard.” She looked up to meet his eyes. “I don’t want to talk about this.”

She turned back to the controls. She knew ship’s controls. Those were things she could easily get together. Those were things she understood.

Ben Solo was not one of those things.

“Where are you taking me?” He finally asked.

“Home,” she said. “We’re going home.”


	11. Chapter 11

Kylo didn’t think Rey’s idea of home was the same as his. She shut herself off inside the cabin, and he didn’t speak anymore. She wasn’t in the mood, and neither was he.

He cradled the stump where his hand was supposed to be inside the Millennium Falcon, a ship he hoped he’d never have to see again.

His footsteps echoed through the metal, the ship protesting as he walked. It made the same noises, felt the same, like it hadn’t changed in all those years. Like his father had never really left.

Thinking about Han Solo only made his stomach turn.

The memories washed over him, freezing him in place. He remembered being a kid here, remembering climbing on Chewbacca’s back. Remembered as his father made him help fix the goddamn ship which kept breaking and no one could ever make it fly for too long.

He didn’t want to remember these things, but still he kept thinking them, going through every single memory of his childhood and trying to pick it apart, pretend it wasn’t him, pretend this wasn’t happening.

He was going to smash something soon.

Kylo stood on the middle of the ship, trying to just stand still and take deep breaths. His master had betrayed him. Both of them. Everything he ever believed had been taken from him, and he still kept losing. How could he keep losing things he didn’t even have anymore?

When the ship finally came to a halt, he hadn’t realized it had been so long since he was standing there.

Rey stood on the doorway. She was still angry, he could tell. He wasn’t sure what had gone wrong between them.

He had offered her the world, and she had turned away.

“Are you going to handcuff me?” He asked, trying to keep his tone light.

“With only one hand, it might be a little hard.”

Kylo looked down at his missing limb once more. He didn’t know whether she was joking or not. His lightsaber had been left behind on Snoke’s hand, and there was no way he would ever get it back.

“Come on,” Rey said, and she shoved him forward, not caring how hard it was.

Outside, he recognized Coruscant.

The glittering city had been bright once, capital to the New Republic and to the old Empire. Its towers rose above the sky and the clouds, the movement bright. The dock was quiet, however, a private place in a bustling city.

“Rey!” Kylo heard a voice shout in the platform, just as he saw the ex-Stormtrooper running towards her. Then Finn stopped, before he embraced her. “What is he doing here?”

He eyed Kylo. For a second, Kylo thought he was going to be punched. But Finn remained where he was.

“It’s a lot to explain,” Rey said, shoving Kylo forward again. “You all right?”

“We were worried,” Finn said, just as someone else came running in the platform.

There was that ridiculous rebel pilot once more, the droid rolling after him. “The Falcon! Rey, is that—?”

They turned to him. Kylo could feel their eyes piercing on him. He didn’t know if it was because they were protective of Rey or just angry he was there. He knew he shouldn’t open his mouth. It had been a bad idea all along, but he couldn’t fight her.

He would not beg her for mercy.

“Call the General,” Rey said. “We got a lot to discuss.”

“I am not—” Kylo started, but he never got to finish the sentence.

Finn punched him right in his nose, and he doubled back. He took a deep breath.

“Now we can go,” Finn said.

 

#

 

Kylo was guided to a cell. He didn’t know how deep below the building it was, but there was nobody else with him. For the first time, he was completely, and utterly alone.

He was tired. He felt so tired.

The stump in his hand didn’t feel like a pain anymore. He didn’t feel like fighting – he didn’t feel like he had to get up or try to get away, or anything at all. He was tired of fighting back.

He had fought Snoke back on the ship. He had pushed him back, keeping him far away from Rey. Rey had managed to sneak him out, all by herself, him getting dragged unconscious.

He was still stunned by her power. It was incomprehensible. It was impossible.

But yet she was.

Kylo looked up when he realized there was a figure outside his cell. He’d have recognized that shadow anywhere.

He got up.

“Don’t do it on my account,” Leia’s voice has a haughtiness to it. He had never taken to calling her mother. Many had called her Princess Leia or by other titles, but that’s what made it hard to call her anything else. She’d always been busy. Too busy.

Her standing there had robbed him of his words. He thought about being on his ship, ready to shoot. Ready to kill this past, too.

But the stormtroopers had done it for him. When the time came, still he hesitated. Still he couldn’t do anything.

“Thinking about finishing the job?” She said. He noticed she was leaning against a cane, her hair streaked with white. It had been long since he’d noticed these things. “You could tell me why.”

He found his voice. “There is no why.”

Leia closed her eyes for a second. There wasn’t much light here in this dungeon. He could only see her through the fractions of the moon shining silver through the bars, her face half-hidden by the shadows.

He came closer to her, standing by the bars.

She slapped his face. Her grip was still strong.

He didn’t flinch.

“You could at least pretend,” she said. “Pretend that you cared.”

“I cared. I cared enough.” He didn’t accuse her. He didn’t accuse them of what they had not done. A part of him was still struggling with it – with that calling of the light again.

He knew those were weak feelings. Snoke had told him so. He had always to snuff them out like a candle’s light. There was no true darkness when the light was shining.

“He’s gone because of you, Ben,” Leia said, her voice quiet. “Before he left, we talked. He had so much faith. He knew he could bring you home.”

Kylo did not reply. He didn’t want to think about his father.

When he closed his eyes, he still saw him falling. Again and again and again, an endless loop inside his mind, something always tugging at his heart.

A Sith could not regret.

That’s what it had taken. That’s what Snoke told him, and he had believed. But his master played him like a fiddle – lying and manipulating him. Kylo thought his bond with Rey was special, but it was forged on lies. In the end, he had betrayed her too, left Snoke torturing the one person he could still find a reason to care about.

He cared about Rey because of her power, he almost said to himself. That’s what had driven him to her.

“I named you Ben because I had hope,” Leia told him. “When you were born, I knew you would bear a great name. A Skywalker in blood. Like your uncle. Like your grandfather.” Leia’s voice trembled. “But they were destined for greatness. I never wanted my son to be burdened with greatness. I wanted you to be normal.”

She pursed her lips.

“Maybe I should have named you something else,” she finally said.

“Han would have named me Millennium Falcon II.”

Leia chuckled, and the sound almost tore him in half. “Yes. He probably would have.”

She looked at him. Their eyes met. It was terrible that he could see his reflected in hers. The same color. The same shape. Everything was wrong about this.

“I wish I could have had more faith,” she finally said. “It was Luke who kept telling me to hope. Hope is good, but I’m getting old and tired of war.” She sighed. “It feels good admitting that to someone. When Luke disappeared, I knew it was for good. He didn’t believe in it anymore. He was trying, but he didn’t.” She looked up. “Why did you do this to us, Ben?”

For some reason, he found himself telling the truth. “He tried to kill me,” he said quietly. “When he sensed the darkness. I woke up and he was standing over me. Ready to finish it.”

Leia didn’t respond for a second. He could never read her features.

“Luke had his flaws.”

“A great many flaws,” Kylo answered. “He never believed I could beat it. Neither did you. Neither did Han. So why bother?” He turned away. “You always talked about hope. You said it was the thing that would keep the darkness at bay. And that’s what I kept praying for, back when I was training. I kept on hoping, but how am I supposed to fight when my own family turned against me?”

Leia did not respond to that. Kylo felt even more tired. He was never one for talking. He didn’t regret his choices. He didn’t spend time focusing on what could have happened in the past, because it didn’t happen.

No one came to save him. No one came to hope for him.

In the end, hope had gotten him nowhere. He was still too entranced by that power, just beyond him, scared of what it would do to him. Scared of what he would become.

So he became what he was most scared of.

“You’ll face a trial tomorrow,” Leia finally said. “For your war crimes.”

He didn’t respond.

He didn’t need to.

 


	12. Chapter 12

“You look exhausted,” Finn said just as he walked inside her room.

She felt just as exhausted, her muscles tense inside her body. Her fight with Snoke was just dawning on her — she’d slain the stormtroopers by instinct, using just the Force and her staff, like they had been nothing. She’d still felt that power coursing through her veins, ready at her command.

She was scared, like she’d never been before.

“I’m a little tired,” she confessed to him.

Even if she was tired, she couldn’t sleep. She couldn’t rest. Snoke had returned, and she remembered his words in the throne room. He could not be beaten. He could not be betrayed. That’s what he’d said before Ben had killed him.

But of course that had never happened. It was just another lie to manipulate them. Snoke had the upper hand all along, and she still had no idea how to defeat him and the First Order. No matter how many times it happened, he still managed to return. She would not be able to defeat him alone.

That was the tragedy of it all. Even with her vision clear as day, with Ben standing by her side, she’d been wrong. She was so sure he’d turn. So, so sure.

And in the end, he had disappointed her once again.

Finn waited for her to say more, like he was trying to understand. But ever since she’d left for Ahch-to, an abyss stretched between them. She still had feelings for him, but they’d shifted into friendship and strong, protective love. His path would take him somewhere far away from her own, though she could see them as friends in the future.

“Why did you go?” Finn asked, finally turning to her, tired of her silence and her waiting. “He could’ve died. It wouldn’t have made a difference.”

“Snoke returned,” she said, “I could feel it. If Kylo is on their side, we cannot win.”

Using his other name felt strange. He wasn’t Kylo Ren to her — he had stopped being a long time ago. When she was able to see through his mask, finally.

“You could’ve died, Rey.”

“But I didn’t,” she said, with more conviction this time. “I can’t keep asking for permission from the Resistance to leave every time. That’s not my job here.”

She wasn’t sure what was her job anyway. She was finally beginning to understand what Luke had said about leaving the island — how she couldn’t fight the whole First Order with her own lightsaber, bring them down just like she was playing a game. She had seen war, and it was not pretty. It was not easy. It was sacrifice and blood and hurt, and she wasn’t keen on getting back to it.

Rey wouldn’t be the one to bring the First Order down. They were too big an organization, something that would take years to dismantle, to fall apart. One strike of her lightsaber wouldn’t be enough. It wasn’t just killing Snoke, or killing Ben, or killing anyone else for that matter. If they didn’t deal with the organization as a whole, they would never be able to defeat them.

Rey knew that wasn’t her part in it. She needed to defeat Snoke, and give them hope. But she couldn’t give them hope even when she was struggling to find it herself.

“You don’t need to put yourself down. You’ll get a new lightsaber. I know you will.”

“Finn, that’s not how it works,” she said, between a smile. “I wish it was that easy.”

“So make it easy,” he told her. “You’re a Jedi now, Rey. You will be able to defeat Snoke. You’ll find a way.”

Rey knew that was her only choice.

And she knew exactly who she had to ask.


	13. Chapter 13

“You’d rather do this in person?” Kylo asked as Rey came in.

The cell was dark once more. It must have been night again, but he couldn’t tell. He’d rested only a little, spending his time between wakefulness and sleep, but never being able to tell how long he’d been in there already. He worried about Snoke and Hux and the First Order, and whether they’d hunt him down.

If he was ever going to pay for what he did.

“I’d rather not do this at all,” Rey replied.

He could see her through the silver light of Coruscant’s moon. She was enveloped in it, like everywhere she went she could bring light. And Kylo Ren was not used to seeing the light.

“What brings you here?” He asked, approaching the bars.

Rey tensed, fearing his proximity. He tried not to take it personally. After everything, it made sense that she wouldn’t want to stand next to him. He stood close to the bars, and she was just on the opposite side. If he reached out his hand, he could touch her face.

“Couldn’t sleep?” He suggested.

“How is Snoke back?” She asked, her lower lip trembling. “You killed him in the throne room. Sliced him in half. How is he not dead?”

Kylo wished he had the answers. He wished he’d paid more attention to the signs. He was so confident in his victory that he never looked back. For a single moment, he’d triumphed over all. Let no one else control him or dictate what he was supposed to be doing. There were no other voices inside his head but his own.

But it was all gone in a fleeting moment. He’d lost Rey. He’d lost to Luke Skywalker, and no one in the Order respected him. All he’d accomplished was gone.

“I don’t know,” he finally answered her.

“Did he never say anything to you?” She insisted, her arms crossed. She was hiding something, he could feel it. “Never gave one indication?”

“Did Luke tell you anything?”

Under the moonlight, he saw her blush. “That’s different.”

“How is it different? Both of our masters were hiding things from their apprentices.”

“That’s not true,” Rey spat. “He taught me the ways of the Force. He guided me.”

“And you still came back to me.”

He looked up to meet her eyes. They were dark brown, the same color of her hair. When he closed his eyes, he could still see them, looking at him. He could never figure out what exactly they wanted.

“My vision said you’d turn,” Rey said. “I was sure.”

“And didn’t I?” He said back.

He remembered the throne room, too. All uncertainty gone. Everything he had held so dear, all his life, gone in that moment, almost in impulse. He never did anything on impulse, all his decisions were thought out for weeks. He’d always strategized. But never when it came to her.

When they touched hands, he knew what he had to do.

Kill Snoke, and make sure the old master never suspected anything.

He knelt with his eyes cast down, while Rey was tortured in front of him, while Snoke had everything right off her mind. And still she hadn’t fallen, she’d fought and fought and fought.

Silly, brave girl.

“Not in the way that matters,” Rey finally said.

He didn’t have an answer to that. He knew her tears too well.

“How do we kill Snoke?” She asked. “How does the Resistance do it?”

He looked up. “You can’t.”

“No one is invincible.”

“He is,” Kylo answered, ever quietly. “I fought him with my mind. For fifteen years. His voice was always with me, whispering. Willing me to do things, ever since I was five. Fifteen whole years, and he wasn’t gone. You can’t defeat him.”

“There must be a way.”

Kylo could almost smile at her persistence. The way she was always trying to fix things that couldn’t be fixed. He could feel the Scavenger in her — hunting and finding things, and then fixing them, again and again. That’s what she was trying to do here.

She hadn’t changed.

“Finding a way is as impossible as finding the old Jedi temples,” he told her, not in unkind manner.

Something in her eyes shone.

He didn’t know what she was hiding. He could try reading her thoughts, but he was sure it wasn’t a battle she would lose this time. It wasn’t a battle he was willing to fight.

He respected her too much for it now.

Rey stood, stepped back.

“You could have come with me, Ben.”

He met her eyes.

“No one in the Resistance would have accepted me,” he said. “And it doesn’t matter. It’s not what I wanted.”

“What did you want?”

He had no response. He didn’t know the answer.


	14. Chapter 14

Rey didn’t want to attend the trial, but it was him that had brought her here. She couldn’t deny that one last look.

Ben Solo was brought to the small improvised courtroom in iron chains. They were static with electricity, in case he tried one wrong move. There were two Resistance soldiers escorting him with guns at the ready.

He looked to the horizon, not meeting anyone’s gaze.

The room quieted all around them.

“Kylo Ren.” It was Poe’s voice who spoke. He’d been promoted to Commander once more. They didn’t have an Admiral or anyone in the fleet that had withstood the last battles. “You stand accused of crimes against the Republic, of betraying the order of the Jedi and killing over ten of your classmates.”

Ben didn’t look anywhere, his face blank. It was so strange, seeing him schooling his emotions. She remembered the bond in the island, when he did so little to hide when no one else could see him.

But Rey could. Rey did.

Now all that she could feel was emptiness, trying to make her face to look as blank as his.

“Do you deny any of these charges?”

He looked up. His eyes found hers.

“No.” He turned back to Poe. “I don’t.”

There was silence in the room as they waited. As the words rang around them. Rey knew of his crimes, knew what he had done. And although she knew it was the Dark side of the Force calling to him, she knew that it was a part of him, too. Something that would never change within him.

Poe started reading the rest of the script, but Rey couldn’t bring herself to pay attention. The words were muted inside her, and the list went on and on, deeds she hadn’t heard about, things she would never truly understand.

She didn’t meet his eyes. She looked at anywhere in the room but him.

Finn stood by her side, and his presence was comforting, but it still felt wrong.

This is not what they should be doing.

Maybe they were all braver than she was. Maybe that was the difference. They would accuse him of his crimes and get it done with, and then she wouldn’t have to look at him again. The Dark side would not have him, but neither would the light.

It had to be enough.

Just then, she felt something wrong. She looked up, and their eyes met all the way across the room.

And then before anyone could do anything, Stormtroopers erupted through the door.

Rey reached for her lightsaber, only to realize it wasn’t there because it was broken. She reached out with the Force and all she could find was her staff, and it was what she got. She reached forward, pushing people down, knocking the first Stormtrooper out. People were shouting on the background, telling the others to get out and to go, but Rey ignored it all.

She focused, and she knew they weren’t just regular Stormtroopers. They were from the First Order—and they were going to hunt her down.

The room was chaos and debris as light and shots exploded all around them. She whirled on her toes, knocking soldiers out as they came, but she knew there were too many of them.

They’d never get out of here alive.

“Give me the gun,” she heard Ben’s voice at her back, and someone obeyed. It was awkward, the way he was holding it with his left hand, trying to get it together. He started shooting, and Rey realized he was covering for her.

The connection tugged them both in the right direction and once more, their movements were in sync. Almost like in the throne room, their minds and bodies connected to a higher calling, they worked. Rey ignored her surroundings. She ignored the shouting, the screams, the debris, and she concentrated on this one thing: taking the Stormtroopers down.

It was over in a matter of minutes, nothing left standing. Ben dropped the gun on the ground, still looking at her, a little lost.

She didn’t see any of the others from the Resistance.

Ben walked forward, taking the helmet off a Stormtrooper. He leaned against it, pressing his fingers into the forehead. It was only a fraction till he turned to Rey.

“They’re not here after me,” he said quietly.

Rey froze. They could be after the Resistance too. Snoke would be hunting them endlessly, trying to drive the Resistance out. He wouldn’t stop.

“What is he after?” Rey asked. They had to find another hideout if he was so quickly after them, they’d have to find a way to hide until they found their allies and built another base. Until Rey was ready to fight Snoke and end this.

Ben looked up, his eyes meeting hers.

“He’s after the texts.”


	15. Chapter 15

The original Jedi texts.

That’s what she had, somehow. Snoke wasn’t after him — Kylo was just another inconsequent piece in this game, something to be cast aside. He’d betrayed his old master, and he still meant nothing. He was nothing.

But Rey had somehow gotten the original Jedi texts. He could read it on the Stormtrooper’s minds. They’d come here for her and the texts, and to see what she knew.

Rey looked panicked, eyes wide.

“How does he know?”

“He knows everything,” Kylo answered her. “You have to get out of here.”

He didn’t think about the Resistance or the Stormtroopers. He was focused on her. She had to get as far away as possible, somewhere Snoke wouldn’t be able to find her.

Kylo wouldn’t be able to save her this time.

“The Resistance—” Rey started to say.

“The Resistance means nothing,” he says. “They’re a pebble in his shoe, something he’ll get rid off eventually. But if you have the Jedi texts, he’ll want you.”

Kylo remembered the first time he had gone to Snoke. After years and years of the old master whispering in his mind, he’d given up. He’d seen the darkness in Luke Skywalker when he tried to murder Kylo, and Kylo had run. He had run to the only person who promised to see his potential. The one person who wouldn’t be disappointed.

But Snoke had first asked about the Jedi training. About what Kylo had learned and what Luke had, and he never forgot about the possible surviving Jedi texts. When Snoke found Luke was still alive, Kylo had survived a beating for three whole days. Three whole days without water and food, hanging by his wrists while Snoke had beat him with lightening. And when there wasn’t Snoke, there were the other Stormtroopers.

It was worse when he couldn’t find Skywalker. And again, it had escaped him.

“He’ll stop at nothing,” Kylo said. “Nothing.”

“He won’t get them,” Rey replied with the attitude he had learned to admire.

She walked forward in the Coruscant corridors, and her steps were determined. There was a cut in her arms and her lower lip was bleeding. He wanted to reach forward and wipe it out, but he didn’t.

He only followed her until she got to the Millennium Falcon.

She turned around, looking at him, as if realizing only now what he was supposed to do. She was already in the ramp of the ship, and he stood motionless there, waiting.

He didn’t know if he should follow her. He could escape — he could run away again. But where would he go? He was cast aside from the First Order. He was hunted by the Resistance.

There was nowhere else Kylo Ren could go.

Rey waited, too, unsure. He could feel the conflict in her as if it was his own — going somewhere, leaving him there, handing him again to justice.

But before she could act, Kylo felt something else.

He turned, and he saw three figures standing in black clothes, similar to his, a dark cape flying in the wind behind them. Each wore a matching dark mask covering their faces.

The Knights of Ren.

He’d have recognized them everywhere.

Kylo stood his ground. He only had a gun. Rey had her staff, but they were still weaponless. The Knights of Ren unsheathed their lightsabers.

Neither of them hesitated. Just like the throne room, Kylo could feel when the bond between them tightened, and it was like he could feel what she was feeling. The adrenaline rush and the willingness to fight, to hurt something.

Rey moved first.

She beat the first Knight across the face with her staff. He held the lightsaber close, but he was holding it wrong — there was a reason Kylo had ascended to be the best of them. He had trained harder, fought harder, given in to his anger and the darkness within. He fought like his life depended on it, because it did.

He let it go, he let it all go in the wind as he stood face to face with people who had been forgotten by him, who didn’t mean anything anymore.

One of them walked forward, pointing his lightsaber forward. It was too short, strange, the light wasn’t big enough. It wasn’t made with original Kyber crystals, like his own was.

“You betrayed us,” he said, “and for that, we’ll strip you of your name.”

Kylo moved forward, blocking the Knight with his mind. With his hand raised, he Force choked him, but the other Knight moved forward, swinging his sabre. It almost hit him, and Kylo called his fallen foe’s saber.

It wasn’t good, but it’d have to do.

By his side, Rey had done the same. Back to back, moving in sync, they fought their enemies, blades swinging, expecting the reckoning. Kylo could taste sweat and blood on his lips, and he fought even harder. His arms and legs were a force of their own, moving fast, and each time, the Knights kept coming back, working harder.

Rey and him were backed against the Millennium Falcon.

Kylo swung forward, hands ready at the sword, but they saw it coming. It was a fight for his life. The sabers swung back and forth, and he kicked them. He didn’t see where Rey was, but she knocked one of them out, the lightsaber rolling in the cockpit as she ran back inside the ship and got it ready.

He fought the other two off, swinging his arms, using the Force, but he was weak from his time in prison, his mind distracted, and he just wasn’t good enough. They came for him, fighting together in coordinated moves, and the lights flashed fast. He fought them back, his muscles tired. He aimed a jab on the shoulders, but someone else held him down, choking him from behind.

Kylo struggled. He couldn’t see Rey. She’d already run, leaving him on the cockpit. He tried stepping back, and he fell on the open ramp of the Millennium Falcon where the three Knights of Ren towered over him.

The first one beat his face.

The second one knelt him down to the ground, and the lightsaber flew once again from his hand.

The third one sealed the deal.

Rey was already in the ship.

“You are nothing,” their mechanical voices said to him. He couldn’t distinguish them. He couldn’t have called them friends. They were the embodiment of everything he had once been and wanted to be, and now wasn’t. They held the lightsabers against his throat. “We strip you of your name, Kylo Ren. We strip you of your rank and your titles. You are undeserving of Vader’s legacy.”

He couldn’t breath.

“We strip you of what you are. You are nothing.”

They pointed the swords, and just when he thought they were going to end it, to slice his neck and be done with it, Rey blasted them off.

The three of them were gone.

The Falcon’s ramp closed, and he was inside.

Rey walked to the cockpit, and they jumped to light speed.

He stayed where he was, frozen.

He was nothing.


	16. Chapter 16

Rey didn’t question him, she didn’t ask where he wanted to go or anywhere else.

She’d seen his face, struck by anger and something else she couldn’t tell, and she knew where she had to go.

The one place where no one could find her.

In a way, she was commandeering Chewbacca’s ship, and she didn’t feel good about it. It felt terrible. It felt like running away, once again, just like Luke did.

She only felt peace when she saw the cliffs of Ahch-To, the green island rising beyond the sea, the familiar rocks around them and the ocean and water below, violent and calm at the same time. Something inside her heart ached, and she landed the Millennium Falcon where she had last time.

Ben hadn’t moved from his spot during the journey. His eyes were distant, as if he wasn’t really seeing her.

When she came in, he looked up.

“Where are we?”

“Welcome to the first Jedi temple,” she told him, opening the ramp.

And then she walked out without waiting for him.

Rey felt the breeze as soon as she got outside. It wasn’t raining — the sun was shining, the clouds only full on the horizon. She didn’t look forward to meeting the strange fish nuns again. They still hated her from last time, probably. But once again, she felt peace.

She turned to see Ben behind her, his mouth open.

“This is where Skywalker was hiding?”

There was no point in hiding anything from him.

“Yes,” she said. “That’s where he was.”

She didn’t feel like talking to him. She’d only come here because she had nowhere else to go. Nothing else was left. The original Jedi texts were with her, and she had to decipher them. If Snoke wanted them, there was a reason.

And she had to find what it was.

“Rey…” Ben began to say.

She turned back to him. “Don’t follow me,” she said. “I’ve got my own problems.”

And then she walked away.

 

#

 

The caretakers had left Luke’s hut just as she had seen it the last time. His clothes were folded on the bed, as if he was ready to put them in the morning. Except the hut was empty now, and Luke was not returning.

He had joined the Force, and he had left her there.

For the first time, she allowed herself to feel frustration. She was frustrated that Luke was gone — he had bought them time on Crait, had fought Ben and the First Order so they could escape. And they had, but it hadn’t been enough. The Resistance was still lost. Their allies were scattered throughout the galaxy and none of them had come to the rescue.

Luke had left Rey to take care of the problem. A problem she never wanted.

She was supposed to give them hope. She was supposed to be a Jedi, and she was supposed to fight in the name of all that is good, to bring light to the darkest corners of the galaxy, where there was no spark of hope was left. She was supposed to be a new legend.

Except she didn’t feel like one. Luke had failed, and so had she, and now she was in this island, hiding, frustrated once more that she didn’t know what to do. Snoke was too big a battle, and she hadn’t turned Ben.

Luke had left her there with nothing.

She turned away from his hut and went towards the Tree, the calling she’d felt it on the island and the whispering.

She didn’t see Ben. He had probably walked to the other side of the island. Good. She didn’t want to see him again. She had tried to save him and then condemn him, and every time she saw him it was another reminder that she had her own failures, too.

The trek to the temple was short, and she was struck with the sight.

The old tree was blackened, burned to a crisp. There wasn’t anything left of the old structure, the wood and roots stuck to the ground the only remains that there was something there. She was glad to have gotten the books on time. Was it Luke who had burned it, before his sacrifice? What did it mean?

She walked forward, footsteps careful. She laid a hand on the roots, but she couldn’t hear anything. The voices were silent, and what was left of the old Jedi structure was gone.

She wouldn’t find answers here.


	17. Chapter 17

The first few days in Ahch-To weren’t too bad.

Kylo walked over the extent of the island, careful to avoid Rey. She had a tight routine — she woke up, went fishing, brought food, walked over to the top of the mountain and trained. She meditated too, her eyes closed, sitting on an isolated rock. He knew her routine like it was his, and he was careful to avoid her.

She didn’t want to see him, and he wasn’t going to force it.

Besides, he had greater things to worry about.

He had been stripped of his name and command. It always felt like such an awkward name, a name he’d picked when he was young and didn’t know what he was doing. He was proud of it — he’d ascended in the ranks of the Knights of Ren, had chosen it for himself. But now it didn’t belong to him anymore.

Every Sith master had chosen a name for themselves, chosen their title.

But Kylo didn’t feel like himself. He didn’t feel like Ben either.

Things were complicated.

At least, his stump was still healing, looking better by the day. But he missed the world out there. He missed knowing what was happening. Kylo had even tried sneaking on board the Falcon to see if he could get something, try to listen to communications, but there was nothing. He wasn’t even sure he wanted to tune in to news — he didn’t know what he was going to look for.

Snoke and the First Order wanted him dead.

The Resistance wanted him dead.

And yet, by some miracle or irony of the Force, here he was, alive, in the only place he spent years looking for.

Kylo explored the island instead. He settled himself on a hut on the other side of the island, where Rey wouldn’t see him. He visited the Jedi temple on the top of the mountain when she wasn’t there, and he had seen the animals and the fish, and an old X-wing that must have belonged to Luke’s. This was the place he had come to die.

And this was the place Kylo was supposed to live.

He got used to the strange fish nuns who came cleaning after him every day, and he learned that they were Lairs, the original caretakers that helped the Jedi. They offered him food and a new set of clothes, and he accepted them. His clothes were torn and bloody, and this was different. There was no need for a First Order uniform. Slowly, he started communicating with them — painfully at the beginning, but he was a quick learner. He asked them about the island and its history, and what was happening outside. They’d taken care of the temples and the islands for thousands of years, and they had seen hundreds of Jedi come and go.

Kylo even got used to the porgs, tiny and inconvenient birds that they were, a little bit annoyed by the way they insistently tried to take over his isolated hut by nesting inside.

On the seventh day of his stay on Ahch-To, the fish nuns brought him a hand.

He knew it must’ve belonged to Luke — he had been through a couple of prothesis in the past, and must’ve left them in the island. Kylo didn’t miss the irony of the situation, the fact that he’d somehow ended in the same place as Luke Skywalker.

The nuns looked at him expectantly, eagerly waiting for his approval.

He managed the smallest of nods.

As soon as they were gone, he put it on. It hurt at first, but the metal fingers flexed well. His reflexes were responsive. It was everything he could hope it to be.

It was yet another reminder of his failure as a whole.

He had traveled all the way across the galaxy, and he still couldn’t be rid of this feeling of guilt and helplessness, of the fact that he would never get what he wanted.

He hadn’t killed Luke Skywalker. He hadn’t killed his past.

He hadn’t become what he was meant to be.

He was a failure to himself, most of all.


	18. Chapter 18

Rey didn’t see Ben for the first week, and she was glad he was keeping to himself. She didn’t want another reminder of the fact that she had run away, that she was lost, that she had no answers and she had failed in every single aspect people expected her to succeed.

In her weaker moments, she wished she had taken his hand instead. At least it would mean she was going to stand somewhere, instead of back to the beginning, without any answers.

The nuns still didn’t like her presence there. She’d managed to knock over a couple of more rocks during her trainings, and it felt like they were always whispering behind her back, among themselves and glancing at her sideways. She felt just the same way about them.

She tried a regular routine — fishing, training, meditating, and reading at night, trying to comprehend the Jedi texts. She had a small understanding of the language and what they meant, but her concentration wasn’t enough. Her reading was slow and she didn’t always understand the meaning of the words. She had find a way, something that would give them hope.

Something that would give her light into what she was doing.

Rey was more frustrated than ever with Luke Skywalker.

She’d been to the temple and the tree again, looking for clues she might have missed, and the only other place she thought to look for was Luke’s old X-Wing. Not that Rey expected to find anything useful there — she knew she was only fooling herself, but she had nowhere else to go.

It was a fine day for walking down to the beach, a treacherous path full of rocks and piled with porg nests that Rey had to jump over. The beach was just a stretch before it sunk down into the place where she’d last seen the old X-Wing.

What she didn’t expect was to find Ben Solo there, bathing.

He turned around as he saw her, and Rey froze in place for a second as she took in his wet hair and the fact that he was wearing no clothes.

She turned around immediately, her cheeks flushing. She knew her reaction was silly — she had invaded his privacy by mistake, but it wasn’t the end of the world. She breathed deep until she felt like her face wasn’t burning, and she turned again to him.

“Are you going to take long?” She asked, making her voice sound as annoyed as possible. She wasn’t in the mood to talk to him. The last few days without having to see him had been the most relaxing she’d ever had, although Rey knew she couldn’t avoid him forever.

“Why are you here?”

“The X-Wing,” Rey said, succinct. “I need it.”

Ben nodded, then turned around, still in the ocean. He didn’t look like he was about to move. It was only a second later that Rey realized what he was doing. She saw the waves rise first, the ocean watter bubbling before it exploded into a thousand different droplets, and the X-Wing was risen from the pile of rocks, and deposited on the beach.

Ben was breathing hard when he was done, and Rey looked back at him incredulous, than shut her mouth before she could say anything that sounded remotely like a compliment.

Rey marched to the X-Wing, getting over the smell of salt that penetrated the ship, but she already knew what she was about to find — motors that weren’t working too well, and nothing that was useful for her.

Rey huffed, climbing out again.

Ben hadn’t moved, or even made an effort to cover himself.

She was about to go, ready to ignore him once again, when she heard him calling.

“Rey,” he said, “wait.”

Rey stopped on her heels. She cursed herself for stopping. She’d saved him again just so it wouldn’t weigh on her conscience, so she wouldn’t leave him behind once more. But she’d promised herself she was done with him.

Still, she didn’t move.

Rey turned on her heels, and at least he’d worn some pants. He was still dripping wet, and she focused on the scar on his face so she wouldn’t look anywhere else. It had already been awkward the first time it had happened, but now even more so.

“What is it?”

“Why did you bring me here?” Ben asked.

“Why do you think?” Rey snapped. “So you wouldn’t be dead.”

“What difference does it make to you?” He asked, and she could feel his question was genuine. “It wouldn’t be your fault.”

Rey opened her mouth, but couldn’t find one single reason to answer him. It was better to be left alone, to never come here at all.

“Maybe you’d have left me behind,” she replied, “but I’m better than that.”

“I wouldn’t have left you.”

“Right,” Rey replied, bitterness seeping into her voice. “You’d have left all my friends to die. It’s different.”

“That isn’t what—”

“I know,” Rey interrupted before he could finish. “You’ve said it before. And it’s just another excuse.”

“I didn’t ask to be taken out of there,” Ben snapped. “And I told what Snoke was after. What more could you want, Rey?”

She stared at him. What more could she want?

She wanted so much more than what she had now. More than a broken lightsaber and the expectations of the galaxy heavy on her back, more than old books in coded languages. She wanted a teacher and she wanted answers, and more than anything, she wanted a glimpse of the Ben Solo she had seen that night in her hut, when they had touched hands, and she thought that maybe everything was going to be fine.

She wanted to feel less alone.

“Maybe I saved you because dying is just too easy,” she finally said, and then turned her back, marching through the sand so she could pretend none of this was happening.


	19. Chapter 19

Kylo didn’t know where to go after Rey had left him there.

Her words stung him — dying was an easy feeling, an easy salvation that he did not deserve, and Rey made sure he knew that. He almost reached out to her again when she marched down the beach, hoping that he could stop her. But he had nothing to say to her. Nothing that he hadn’t tried saying before.

Once again, there was another abyss between them.

He dried himself as best as his could, still feeling strangely warm. It wasn’t the first time she’d seen him almost naked, although it was just as awkward this time. He put on his clothes again, feeling clean for once, and took the rocky path that took him under the Jedi temple.

He still hadn’t been there, but he’d circled it, afraid to climb its stairs and find something he didn’t want to see. Instead, he took the smaller beaten path, the only one he hadn’t explored yet.

It was a dark cave, underneath the tunnels, and it held the old Jedi memorabilia.

They were thousands of years old, to say the least. Pots and pans and robes, things that hadn’t been used in hundreds of years. It was clean, at least, which meant the Lairs were taking good care of it. The tunnel had a small opening, and Kylo crouched so he could explore.

Inside the tunnels, there were old scratches of writing.

Writing was an old art lost to the galaxy, and almost no one practiced it anymore. Kylo touched his real fingers to the caves, tracing the symbols in it, trying to remember what they meant. He’d studied it when he was younger, trying to keep up the old art, something to distract his mind. Not just distract it, but something that helped him block any unwelcome thoughts.

His footsteps were light on the cave as he followed the writings, and it was just a list of names — names of different Jedi who had been there, who had come here and left their sole mark on the stones of the oldest temple. He didn’t recognize any of them. None of the names here meant anything to Kylo, and that made it worse.

The Jedi were now more forgotten than ever, their deeds fading into the galaxy’s dying suns, and vanishing like all the rest.

He wondered if they, too, had carved their names alone here.

Kylo soon found himself at the end of the tunnel, facing yet another piece of forgotten history. The end opened up into a small cave, dripping water from the ceiling into a bond below. He stepped carefully around the holes so he wouldn’t plunge once more into the cold waters of the ocean, and got to the chest sitting in the middle of the platform.

It was made of old wood, and Kylo closed his eyes, using the Force to open its locked metals. They slid away with ease, and when he pried the chest open, he found dozens of lightsabers.

He took a deep breath, unsure of what to think of it. Had all the wielders of the lightsabers come here to die on this island, to seek the answers that were beyond the Jedi order?

If they came all the way here, it was all but forgotten. The collection had over a hundred sabers of different sizes and different handles, and the first one he did notice was Luke’s. He’d have it recognized anywhere. He still saw its shade of green in his dreams.

He took it carefully in his hands. It was lighter than his own, and in the darkness of the cave, he activated it. It was just as he’d remembered it, the light a phosphorescent shade of green light that would haunt him forever. He clicked it off, putting it aside.

He needed a new saber if he wanted to keep training. Any of those would do, it didn’t matter either way. It wouldn’t be his, either way. Those sabers all belonged to the light side, and he was not of it.

He chose one that the color ignited blue, and that was that.

But still, he took Luke’s saber with him.

He only understood what he was really doing when he sneaked inside Rey’s hut and left the lightsaber on her bed. It was fitting, that she had it now.

If they were going to kill each other eventually, it would be a full circle.


	20. Chapter 20

Rey found Luke’s lightsaber on her bed when she returned. She didn’t know who had put it there for her to find, but she was glad it was there. It was a small comfort, when hers was broken beyond repair. A shred of hope that she’d be able to repair her own.

It was raining outside when she went to the Jedi Temple again. She didn’t mind the rain or the way the wind beat against her, and the climb was calm. The temple was already familiar to her now — the way the rocks had been built, the symbol etched in the middle of the temple. She knelt by its side, the reflection in the mirror pool looking back at her.

Half was darkness, half was light.

She hadn’t found an answer in the books. It was useless, and she couldn’t read them. She almost felt guilty when she considered that Ben might be able to — he’d know. Luke had more time to train him, since he was a child.

Luke had spent more time with him than he had ever spent with her.

Anger sparked within her. She knew that she wasn’t supposed to feel any of that, but the more she looked for answers, the more frustrated she grew. She was helpless in the emptiness of the island, with no one there to guide her. Luke had promised to teach her where she belonged, but Rey didn’t know.

She still didn’t know, and fear grew within her bones every time she closed her eyes.

She sat on top of the rock. Rey was sure this was the last place Luke had been alive — how he’d projected himself all the way to Crait to give them a chance to escape. And then he was dead, and she hadn’t come closer to having the answers she needed.

When she closed her eyes, she felt the Force running beneath the island, connecting all living things. She felt it in the nests and the porgs, in the grass that was growing, the earth and the skeletons beneath, the water down below. Violence and peace, life and death. Darkness and the light.

And then it was calling to her again, the great darkness below. She didn’t know its name — she just knew it was the darkness below, the one calling her name, promising her answers. It had given them to her, about her parents. The thing she wanted the most.

It called her, whispering into her bones, bringing her closer, drawing her in. She could find answers there. All she had to do was go down down below. Sacrifice a small part of herself.

All she had to do was give in.

Giving in was so easy.

“Rey!” Someone called her, and Rey snapped out of it.

When she opened her eyes, Luke Skywalker was standing in front of her.

It was a younger version of Luke — he still had a beard, but his hair was shorter, his eyes were shining, and he looked healthier than before. That’s when she realized there was a strange glow surrounding him.

“Luke?” She asked, just to be sure. But it couldn’t be.

“Yes, that’s my name.”

Rey frowned. “I thought you were dead.”

“I am dead,” he said with a simple shrug.

She waited for an explanation, but could find none. It wasn’t logical.

“So what are you? A ghost?”

“We Jedi prefer to call it a bodily manifestation of the Force,” he answered.

“So like a Force ghost?”

Luke gave an exasperated sigh. “I see we’re not going anywhere with this.”

Rey sat up straighter on the rock, looking at him. “Snoke’s back,” she said, wasting no time. She didn’t know how long this manifestation would last, and she intended to make the most of it. “Ben killed him.”

“I know,” Luke said, kindly. He sat next to her on top of the rock, his robes flying in the wind. “I could not save him.”

“I didn’t turn him,” Rey said. “I was so sure. I can feel the conflict in him. I could feel it — I saw it so clearly.”

“The Force doesn’t always give the clearest of visions.”

“I saw him by my side,” she said, conviction in her voice.

She saw Ben’s face again, clear, looking at her in the elevator as they climbed to see Snoke. She could feel it, the Force moving between them. One light, and one dark. She knew she could turn him in the right direction.

When he looked at her, she could forget the rest of the world.

“His path is harder than yours,” Luke finally said. “I don’t know if anyone can turn him.”

“He’s not gone.”

“And yet you’re sitting here. I can feel him on the island, too. I might be dead, but I’m not an idiot.”

Rey’s cheeks burned. “I didn’t mean to bring him. But it was either that or leave him to die.”

“And you couldn’t do that.”

Rey looked over at him.

“I thought about killing him,” she said. Shame coursed through her veins. She knew that was not the way of the Jedi. “I thought about ending it.”

“Ending it is the easy way,” Luke said. “It’s why the temptation of the dark side is so strong. Because it’s so much easier. But if you had, you’d just be as bad as him.”

“He’s done worse things than me,” she replied. “He’s killed dozens. He killed your apprentices. And when he killed Snoke, I thought he’d come to the light side.”

“Another killing rarely warrants turning to the right side,” Luke said, raising one of his eyebrows.

Rey stayed quiet. She had so many conflicting feelings. There were so many things she wanted to ask him. About defeating Snoke, about the books she’d stolen, about her training. But she couldn’t find the words.

She was still lost. She didn’t even know what she wanted.

So she asked him about the one thing she knew.

“How did you know?” Rey asked. “How did you know you could turn him?”

Luke sighed by her side. “I didn’t.”

“But you went to the Death Star!” She exclaimed. “You went to the Emperor out of your own free will. You let your friends fight the Empire, and you still weren’t sure?”

“No,” Luke replied. “I still didn’t know. I hoped. And it was enough.”

“Hope won’t win us this fight.”

Luke brought his hand to hers, and it almost felt like a physical touch.

“Then you’ve already lost.”


	21. Chapter 21

Kylo waited till Rey had gone out of the temple to go inside.

In a whole week, he hadn’t seen the temple. He felt its presence, in the back of hid mind, the giant construction inside the top of the mountain calling to him, and him refusing to go.

He’d spent so much time looking for this place. Hunting books about the Jedi, looking for relics across the galaxy, grasping into whatever he could find in search for more power. For something that would allow him to live in peace.

But he hadn’t found anything. And now that he was here, nothing brought him peace.

He wanted to tear the whole world apart, island by island, stone by stone, until he found something he could live for.

There was no door to the temple. It was built on old stone, ancient and still withstanding. There was nothing etched on its walls, but when he put his hand to it, he could feel the power. This temple had been built through the Force, shaping its way inside the mountain, hardening it on the earth. Every step he could feel it, the way it pressed on him until it was suffocating.

When the temple opened to a cave, he was almost kneeling to the ground.

In the middle of the temple, there was a mosaic. It was a mirror pool, wide, right in the opening of the cave. The moon was shining right through it, illuminating the dark side of the pool. It was light and dark, together in one.

He put his hand to it, feeling the coldness of the water, letting it drip from his fingers back into the pool.

Here, at the center of the temple, he could feel the Force. He could feel it like he’d never done it before — pure, great, in balance. It was trying to get to him, suffocate him until he could feel almost nothing.

He wanted to fight back, but he couldn’t.

He sat, waiting. Waiting till it could tell him something, that it would guide him to something. He’d spent his whole life searching for this purpose, and just when he had everything, it had escaped from his grasp.

It meant nothing to him. It was nothing. His life was built on lies.

He wanted to break this place, burn it to the ground. He got up, fighting against the working of the Force. He turned to the temple stones, raising his hand till he could feel them in his grasp. He was going to break it all apart. His anger was stronger, and he was ready to finally bring it down.

“You aren’t going to destroy it, are you?”

He turned to see who was speaking. It was a young man — not much older than he was. He had the same unkempt, shoulder-length hair but the color of honey, a scar crossing the right side of his face.

It seemed like he was looking back at a mirror.

“Who are you?’ Kylo asked, for the first time uncertain. He was sure they were alone in the island but for the creatures. There was no sign of human inhabitation.

“Oh, let me guess, Luke never told you,” the young man replied. He was smiling. Kylo thought it was a bit annoying. “He does like to keep some secrets. Can’t say he hasn’t got it from me.”

The young man grinned again, waiting. There was a warm blue glow about him and his robes. He was also wearing black.

Kylo had never seen images of his grandfather before he turned into Darth Vader, but he had heard of the descriptions. He hadn’t realized they looked very much the same, except he was more pale and his hair was darker.

“Darth Vader?” Kylo finally asked in disbelief.

“Actually, I prefer Anakin,” he told Kylo. “I haven’t gone by Vader in a long time.”

Kylo didn’t know what to think of this. Was he hallucinating? Was this the Force working in some strange way to stop him from bringing down the temple?

“You’re not hallucinating,” Anakin told him. “It’s more like you’re being so annoying that I couldn’t help but show up.”

“You’re dead.”

“Figured this out all by yourself?”

Kylo could hear the obvious mocking in the tone. He didn’t like it. This couldn’t be Anakin Skywalker, one of the most gifted Jedi to ever turn to the Dark side. His true inspiration.

“What are you?”

“A manifestation.” Anakin shrugged. “A ghost. Call it whatever you want. I’m here.”

“Why are you here?”

“Isn’t it obvious? You just tried destroying the first Jedi temple just because you’re sad.”

“I’m not sad,” Kylo said, his voice suddenly rising. Did the other have pleasure in being utterly obnoxious? He couldn’t be serious. “And I wasn’t going to destroy it.”

“Are you sure?” Anakin asked, eyebrow raised. “Doesn’t look like it.”

“Are you always like this?” Kylo finally asked, not being able to keep his annoyance at bay any longer.

“Obi-Wan used to ask me the same thing, every day,” Anakin told him. He walked around the temple, looking up at the sky and the different stones. He looked like he was having a great time, just strolling around and in no hurry. “So you’re my grandson. I thought you’d be taller.”

Kylo only stared. He could not find his words, as if they were all stuck on his throat. There was the man he grew up hearing about — the man who’d helped build an Empire. The man who’d helped destroy one.

They were all mixed stories, good and bad. It was Snoke who said it first, that he could be the new Vader. To finish what Vader had started.

But looking at the young man in front of him, Kylo was not sure they were ever talking about the same person at all.

“What do you want?” Kylo finally asked. “There’s a reason you’re here.”

“Yes, keeping the temple safe,” Anakin replied. “I already said that.”

“This can’t be it.”

Anakin snorted. “Do you think you’re so important you warrant a visit from your ancestors just to answer your questions? I’m not that wiser than you.”

“You were Darth Vader.”

“As I said, not much wiser.”

Anakin stopped by the mirror pool, looking inside, splashing his fingers. He looked distracted and calm. He looked young.

“You ask a lot of questions, you know, but never the right ones,” Anakin finally said. “What does it feel like, getting what you want?”

Kylo didn’t answer. It was as if he knew what Kylo himself was thinking. All he had worked for and wanted, and now gone.

He’d lost all his objective in life. He didn’t have anything to fight for.

“It always feels empty,” Anakin said, as if reading his mind. “Do you want to know how I turned? I turned because I needed power to save the woman I loved. And in the end, it wasn’t enough.”

“You still had power.”

Anakin laughed. “Power is great when you have it, but it’s empty. Where did it get you? Did it get you the throne you wanted? Do you feel complete now?”

Anakin knew he didn’t. Kylo still struggled with that emptiness that rested inside him.

“Is it all for nothing?” Kylo finally asked.

“No,” Anakin replied, his expression hardened. “Don’t get me wrong. The Jedi saved and doomed me. I grew up as a slave with a mother I couldn’t free, and the Jedi never cared about her. They cared about their precious peace, and they turned their eyes when they saw suffering. They saved me from a terrible destiny only because they thought I was the Chosen One. If I didn’t have that much power, I’d never been able to leave Tatooine.” He paused. His eyes were distant, as if he wasn’t still at peace with all of that. “They saved me, yes, but there was no support system in that. The Jedi are all about being good and noble, and it does not leave you room for other feelings. They make you seem weak when you do.”

Kylo waited.

It’s what had called him to the Dark Side in the first place. All his life, he’d been told he had great power. He was the son of Leia Organa and Han Solo, nephew to Luke Skywalker, grandson of the Chosen One.

He was a Skywalker, he had a legacy to keep.

This was his duty.

And also the one thing he could never control.

“Destiny is rubbish,” Anakin told him. “I was destined to save them, and I helped the Emperor give the order that would kill all the Jedi. I was angry and upset, and the Dark Side told me I could save Padmé.”

“What happened?”

“She died,” Anakin said, clear bitterness in his voice. “All my life I dreamed about her dying. I thought I could stop it, but I was foolish and tempted. But the harsh truth is that the Jedi would not have saved her either.”

Anakin rested against one of the walls.

“The Dark side gave me enough power to keep going,” he said. “To think it was going to get me somewhere. To fill that empty void that was inside me.”

But Kylo knew it wasn’t enough. Fifteen years since he’d turned. Fifteen years under Snoke’s shadows, seeking something, always something, that would get him farther than before. That would make him more worthy.

“But you’re still here,” Kylo finally said. “I thought you wanted the galaxy to go dark.”

Anakin laughed, but it was a sound that was still filled with bitterness. “I did, because if I couldn’t have the happiness I thought I deserved, then no one else could.”

“What happened?”

“Luke,” Anakin said. “My son.”

Kylo paused. One person to change everything.

That’s all it ever took.

“Luke believed in me,” Anakin said. “He thought I wasn’t gone. He was sure I could still do some good. And he was right — I could. When the Emperor tried to kill him, I killed the Emperor, and ended it.”

Kylo didn’t respond. Anakin was deep in thought, lost in something that had happened over thirty years ago.

“For that one moment, it was worth it,” Anakin said. “I saved my son, and he lived to bring hope to the galaxy again. It didn’t fix all of my mistakes. It didn’t wipe out my reputation as Darth Vader. But it was a small ray of sunshine in the darkness. And sometimes, that’s enough.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying don’t die, Ben Solo,” Anakin’s voice was clear in the cavern. “I’m saying, don’t think that the power is going to get what you want, because it isn’t. I’m saying there’s still time. There always is.”

 


	22. Chapter 22

Luke, unfortunately, was as much help as a ghost as he was as a real live person. He hadn’t answered any of Rey’s questions, and even after what she’d imagined was a motivational speech, she still didn’t know how to bring down Snoke, or what he wanted with the original Jedi texts. Luke had told her to forget them — that they wouldn’t bring anything, but Rey knew the answers lied there.

She also now understood his frustration when she first came to the island, begging for him to train her, scared of her own powers. Rey wasn’t scared anymore, but she had been foolish once again — foolish to think everything was going to be easy if she just believed it hard enough.

She sat on the cockpit of the Millennium Falcon, the only place that she had certain familiarity, playing with the controls till she could tune in Finn. They’d talked about leaving one single open channel for when they needed to talk in an emergency, and Rey wanted to know what was happening.

It took a second before the connection went through.

“Finn?” She asked, voice hesitant at first.

When the screen in the ship flickered, it showed her Finn, and right behind him, Poe.

“Rey! Where were you?” Finn was the first to ask, and Poe frowning behind him. “We’re worried sick. You disappeared. The Falcon disappeared.”

“That bastard disappeared too,” Poe muttered.

“It’s fine,” Rey said, but for some reason, she didn’t want them to know she’d brought Ben along on the trip. Guilt settled on the pit of her stomach. “I’m fine. I took the Falcon back to the island.”

Finn nodded. She could see the concern in both their faces, how worried they were. Rey wanted good news — something that could cheer her up. She didn’t want to call to be told she was acting like a child, running away when they needed her the most.

Poe sighed. “Damn it, Rey. It’s now how this thing works. When are you coming back?”

The question hanged in the air with a heavy weight.

“I don’t know,” she replied. “With Snoke back, I need to stay far away. Until I can figure out how to kill him.”

She told them about the Jedi texts she’d stolen, and how Snoke was tracking her. She couldn’t afford to lead him back to the remains of the Resistance while she didn’t have answers. She never mentioned anything about Ben.

“Look, we have some other —,” Poe was interrupted by someone shouting in the background. “Leia needs me. I’ll be back. Stay safe, Rey.”

He winked at her, and Rey smiled. Then she was alone with Finn.

Finn gave her a tight-lipped smile.

“What’s going on, Finn?”

“We’ve gathered the allies,” Finn told her. “Someone stole plans from Snoke’s new base. He’s going to have a parade to demonstrate his power in about two weeks. All leaders of the First Order will be there.”

“And it would be the perfect opportunity to end this.”

Finn nodded. “I know how worried you’ve been. But I know you’re going to figure out the answers, too. Preferably before that.”

“And if I can’t?”

Finn didn’t answer her for a second. She could see the hope he deposited in her, the faith he had. As everyone in the Resistance had.

“We’ll make the plans work,” Finn said. “Whatever it takes. It’s time we end this.”

She heard Poe calling him on the background. She was glad they had each other, even if maybe they hadn’t figured out everything by themselves. They were together, and that’s what mattered. Finn ended the call, waving goodbye, and then her link to the world was gone.

Rey was alone.


	23. Chapter 23

Kylo met her outside the Millennium Falcon.

He didn’t expect her to be here, and he could see that Rey didn’t expect it either — her cheeks were flushed with heat, her brown eyes fiery. She looked as lost as he felt, and he had no idea what it meant.

Under her arms, there was a single book he recognized as one of the original Jedi texts.

He had only seen drawings of it, long ago, but never something like books. Books were a luxury awarded to few in the Republic, and producing paper was expensive. Few knew how to write, too — he’d learned more as a hobby, trying to copy ancient texts and symbols while he was studying.

Rey looked up at him, then frowned.

“I thought I said I didn’t want to see you,” she said. “What are you doing here?”

Kylo stammered. He could make up some lie about stealing the ship, but they both knew it was going to be a lie. He didn’t have anywhere else to go. He had a price on his head and no future.

It wasn’t too late, Anakin had said.

But his whole life there had been lies. Lies and anger and expectation and everything that burdened his shoulders since he was young, and things he thought he wanted but never truly did. He was still trying to figure it out.

“Are those the texts?” He asked instead, pointing to the book Rey was carrying.

Rey looked between him and the book. He thought she might scream at him again. Call him a murderer. He deserved it. He deserved that and more.

But instead, she nodded. “I stole them from the tree,” Rey said. “Before I left to meet you.”

Their eyes met. Hers were a warm brown, the color of the bark of trees, the color of earth. The color of life.

“It’s not how I wanted it to go,” he said.

“No,” Rey said. “I understand. If Snoke had guessed, he’d have killed you, too.”

“Yes.”

Not that it mattered anyway. Snoke wasn’t dead. His plan didn’t work. Rey had come to him, and he’d planned it all out on his head — Snoke would be too sure of his victory. Sure that Kylo had brought Rey and Skywalker to him at last to notice his apprentice turning. And then Rey would stand with him.

Nothing went as planned.

“What do they say?” Kylo asked her. “The texts. Why is Snoke after them?”

Rey bit her lower lip. He could feel her discomfort and uncertainty. Maybe it was that she was standing in front of him. When they were connected by the Force, it felt like they were close, and that one time they’d touched hands, it had been powerful. But now just standing next to her was suffocating, eating him raw, his veins burning like fire.

“I don’t know,” Rey finally said. “I can’t translate them. I can’t figure out what they say.”

“Can I see?”

Rey huddled the text closer, as if he were going to snatch it from her hands.

“How do I know you’re not going to run after Snoke again?” Rey asked.

“Snoke wants me dead.”

“It wouldn’t be the first time.”

Her words hurt more than if she’d stabbed him. Of course he’d run. He’d run somewhere safe, somewhere he knew. He didn’t like the unknown. Kylo liked what he had known.

Except that everything he knew was now burned to the ground.

“We could work together,” he said.

“The last time you offered me this, you’d have let my friends die,” Rey said. “You’d leave everything I love to die.”

“The past is—”

“You can’t erase the past,” Rey said. “You can’t. That’s not how it works. The past is always going to be a part of you. As it is a part of me.”

With that, she stalked away, still clutching the book, and Kylo couldn’t even move as he watched her go.


	24. Chapter 24

Rey couldn’t sleep at night.

She felt the darkness calling to her every time she closed her eyes, whispering of the answers it could get her. Its roots were reaching out for her, and Rey just wanted to get lost.

The conversation with Ben earlier that day didn’t help. She couldn’t forgive him just yet — she still remembered her faith that he’d change. The way their bodies moved together in the throne room, the way they stood in sync. For one single moment in the entire universe, they were together.

And then they were torn apart once again.

Rey didn’t want to be reminded of her pain and tears. She got up, putting on a cloak. The breeze was blowing in full force that night, her cloak billowing behind her. Rey took Luke’s lightsaber, and then she let it call to her.

The darkness was close. It was just like she’d remembered, with its tentacles sprouting out of a single hole in the ground. Rey went down, letting go of her fear, feeling the rush of adrenaline inside her veins as she dropped to the water.

The impact was fast, and she swam, climbing out into the darkness of the cave, followed only by moonlight.

When she turned, crawling up the rock, she saw Ben.

He was standing right in front of that mirror, the surface cold. He turned when he saw her, his black hair dripping wet on his shoulders. She faced him, her body shivering, and she wasn’t sure he wasn’t an illusion like the rest of this place.

“You hear its calling too?” He asked, his voice so small it couldn’t be classified as a whisper.

His eyes were windows into his soul. They were alone in the entire universe, just the two of them. Just like it had been on the first days she discovered the bond.

She wasn’t sure how to react at first. She was angry that the Force thought fitting tying her fate to his — the one who’d murdered Han Solo, and had tried to pierce what she knew, invading her mind. She fought with all her will, and she fought him harder while he went after her.

But after the bond, it was different. She could see him, alone, with no one else to distort the view. No one else to warp their plans.

The monster and the Jedi girl, tied together to the fate of the world.

Rey ignored him. She was getting good at it. She should have let him die on Snoke’s hand, but she couldn’t. She couldn’t kill him herself. All she could hope was that he decided to disappear from her sight. Find somewhere far away, and she’d never have to see him again.

“Rey,” he said, and she froze. He wasn’t forcing her to stop. Ever since he tried to break her mind in the Starkiller base, he’d never tried any other Jedi tricks. But it was like her body responded in kind. Just her name.

Just that.

“Please don’t talk to me,” she said. “I’ve got no more time to waste.”

“I’ll help you.”

Rey turned. Tears were threatening to fall. They were the same words she’d spoken to him before. She was foolish. She did think she could help him.

Except she couldn’t.

No one could save Ben Solo but himself.

And she wasn’t going to let herself fall for that again.

“I have a galaxy to save,” she finally said, and then she walked forward and touched the mirror.


	25. Chapter 25

Kylo watched her vanish from sight like she’d never been there.

This place had called to him at night, and he could feel the temptation there. The darkness had answers. It promised him a great many things, tormenting him endlessly. It would have no end, not until he got there.

Except he didn’t think he’d see Rey there again.

She’d talked about this place through their bond, she’d hoped to find answers, and it had lured her there and delivered nothing. That was darkness all in itself, promising endless things, and he delved deeper, always going for more. More. More. More.

The only thing he wanted — always more, and it was never enough.

Kylo faced the mirror, his face reflected back on it. He didn’t know what to expect. He was used to darkness. It had been with him for most of his life, a companion like no other. The only thing that hadn’t betrayed him.

Kylo touched the mirror, and then he was sucked inside too.

In the cavern, there was nothing. No sound and no light, and he couldn’t see. He blinked it away, and then he saw it.

Another mirror.

In it, he was younger. His hair was shorter, and there was no scar tearing half of his face. His clothes were lighter, too, and the sword in his hand was blue.

It was the sword of Anakin Skywalker.

He reached for it, and there it was in his hand. When he activated it, the light was blue, lighting up the rest of the cavern. In it, there was nothing but darkness.

Darkness and himself.

“You’re a disappointment,” a voice said, and he could hear Luke.

“No bloodline of the Skywalker’s,” another said, and it sounded just like his mother.

And then it was hundreds and hundreds of shadows, repeating the same words back to him — that he was a disappointment, that he didn’t fulfill his fate, that he would never become anything. That he was weak. He would never overcome what he fought.

Kylo turned off the sword, but it was no use.

“Weak! Weak! Weak! Weak!”

The voices chanted all around him, deafening, until he could hear almost nothing. He was kneeling to the ground, the voices and chants overpowering him, and he pressed his hands to his ears.

It was his light reflection that walked forward.

“Weak,” the younger Ben said to him. “You couldn’t fight it. You were never meant to be great. You were never meant to be anything at all.”

It activated the lightsaber and pointed to his neck. One misery strike and it was all over.

Kylo waited while the voices chanted for his execution.

He couldn’t even bring himself to stop it.

His reflection shifted, and then it was Rey holding the lightsaber.

“You’re a monster,” she spat, and it echoed inside his head. “You’ll never be more than that.”

“I am a monster,” he said quietly.

And then the voices vanished. Rey rippled and he was alone once again with his own monstrosity, his sins and the darkness that he fed on, and that fed on him. He felt something hot on his cheeks, and he touched them only to find tears.

He was alone here now. And he was always going to be.

That’s not what he came here to see.

And then there was something else in there with him. Kylo got up, his knees wobbly, squeezing his eyes so he could see.

In the middle of the room, there stood Han Solo.

It was his father like he’d remembered him from his childhood days — younger, always a smile on his face, always calling him ‘kid’. It had annoyed him to no end that Han had never called him his name. It had been fifteen years since he’d seen his father on the Starkiller base, and Han just looked old.

Kylo was sure it was the right step. The only thing that had stopped him from going to the Dark side as a whole. He couldn’t kill his past.

“Ben,” Han said. “Come on. Get up.”

“You’re not real.”

“Nothing is real on this world,” Han Solo said kindly. “I’ve seen men move planets with the strength of their thoughts. Ghosts and other things you wouldn’t believe. Doesn’t mean it isn’t real.”

“I killed you.”

“Yeah, I know,” Han replied. “Come on, Ben. Get up.”

Kylo broke down again, his knees to the ground. It was cold and easy there. Maybe if he closed his eyes, all of it would go away.

“Come on, Ben, I haven’t got all day.”

“You’re here to torment me.”

“I’m here to help you, you idiot.” His father crouched down next to him, looking him in the eye. “I said I’d do anything for you. Everyone wants you back, son.”

“This wasn’t how it was supposed to go.”

“I’m sorry,” Han said. “I haven’t been perfect. I thought I could change things so easily. But I didn’t, and I failed you. You should’ve never have gone to the dark side.”

“It’s the only thing I know,” Kylo replied quietly. He looked up to meet his father’s eyes. He knew it was just an illusion, that Han Solo wasn’t really there, that it was all something the darkness wanted him to see.

It was torture.

He saw Han’s body fall from the bridge, over and over and over again, an action he would never be able to take back. Something had torn inside him that day, for good. Something that he would never be able to fix.

He didn’t know how.

“I can’t fix this,” Kylo finally said. “I can’t fix any of it.”

“You can try,” Han said. “Come on, Ben. This doesn’t depend on me, or your mother, or anyone else. We can’t save you.”

Han Solo was right. No one could save him now.

“Ben,” Han said one last time. “Come on, Ben. You have to try.”

“It’s over!” Kylo said, looking up. “It’s all over. From the moment I stepped away in Luke’s temple, it was over. I can’t do this. I can’t do what you’re asking of me.”

He could see it inside him, the battle he was always forging. The darkness that called, the light that wouldn’t relent. There was always someone asking for something he couldn’t give. It wasn’t enough.

He thought he was done when he killed Han. He would kill his past. Forget all about it. Give in to darkness.

And still, there was nothing. He couldn’t forget. He couldn’t change it. It would always be his past. It would always be his, and no one else’s.

“Son,” Han Solo said again, “it’s time.”

He wouldn’t forget his past any longer. He couldn’t fix it.

But there were things he could fix still. He saw the reflection of Rey in the cave. Maybe he had nothing, but she had everything — she had a future. Her dreams were not gone.

He was not going to let her fail.

“Come on, Ben.” Han offered his hand. “Get up.”

Kylo Ren took his hand, but it was Ben Solo who finally got up.

The last thing Ben saw before Han disappeared was his smile.


	26. Chapter 26

This time, Rey didn’t see the reflection of herself on the mirror.

It was like she’d been brought inside it, standing next to the emptiness and the dark, and it stretched on forever with nothing in sight. She waited, her senses tingling. She wished she had her sword again, to spread the light in the cavern, but it rested broken with no use in sight.

“I want answers,” she called to the cavern. “I came here for them.”

She heard the whispers as they enveloped her. She couldn’t decipher them — they were ancient and cold, and she couldn’t understand.

Rey stood her ground, still waiting.

And then something moved.

There was sudden light in the cavern, and darkness to battle it. She could feel the way the two forces tried to go against each other, only for them to be dissolved. Their strength canceled out, and there was nothing, and the emptiness triumphed again.

“Light and dark,” she heard the whispers. “That’s the key.”

The word was echoed against the walls, and suddenly, she was seeing something else all together. She was on the top of a mountain, raining and cold, as a strange man was rising on the top of a cliff, and a Jedi knight stood against him.

But every time the Jedi tried to use the Force, it was like it had been canceled by the other — the struggle drawn into a black hole, never to be seen again. It happened again and again, until the Jedi was down on his knees, and he couldn’t call to the Force anymore.

The vision vanished from her sight, just like it had begun. She didn’t understand it, or what it meant. She hoped for something clear, something she could use.

Then in front of her, stood Luke.

“Forge your new blade, Rey,” he told her. “Forge it, and it’ll help you.”

She called to him, but no voice came out of her throat. What blade?, she wanted to ask. What did it all mean? Why had it shown her those visions? She still didn’t understand.

“There is power in the Force,” Luke told her. “Master it accordingly, and it shall help you. There is only one Force. Do not try to separate it.”

And then he vanished again, and Rey was left staring at her reflection once more.

She was still shivering wet as she laid a hand on the mirror, and her reflection followed. Rey was perfectly reflected in the surface, to the dripping of her hair, the tears that threatened to fall in the corner of her eyes.

All she wanted was the answers.

She was tired of running away.

All she wanted was to give them hope, but she couldn’t even give them that.

Rey rested her forehead against the mirror and cried.


	27. Chapter 27

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This has been one of my favorite chapters to write, ever. I hope you enjoy it, and please leave comments and kudos!

Ben waited with a lighted fire till she came out of the cave.

Rey was shivering, and her eyes were red like she’d been crying, but trying hard not to show it. She wiped her nose clean when she saw him, and approached the fire.

He offered her a hand.

“Don’t touch me,” she said stiffly.

Ben recoiled immediately. Whatever she’d seen down there, it’d also left her shattered. He wanted to ask her about it, but he didn’t know if he was ready for it still. It was too soon. Too hard.

But he’d made a promise to himself down there. Maybe he hadn’t enough to live for — he was a wanted man with a price on his head, and there was nothing on this world left for him. But Rey did. And he was going to help her.

Rey sat down opposite him, staring at the fire. It was a small one, but it kept them both warm as they dried off. Her clothes were still dripping wet, and he avoided looking at her straight. She untied her hair, letting it free down her shoulders. It looked beautiful.

“You shouldn’t have followed me,” she finally said.

“I wasn’t,” Ben replied. “I heard the call, too.”

“Then you were supposed to resist it,” she said stubbornly. “You already know the dark.”

He did. And that cave, although it was dark at first, was not what he thought it was going to be. Because while he had seen things he didn’t want to see, he also saw the things he must. It had given him a clear path. Something he could work with.

“This wasn’t true dark,” he said. “It’s not how it feels.”

“The dark side manipulates,” Rey replied. “It tells you things you want to see.”

“So I suppose you saw whatever you wanted to see in there?”

Rey quieted, her eyes darting to his. She pursed her lips in anger.

“You told me last time,” Ben said, poking the fire with a stick, “that you didn’t find the answers you were looking for.”

“You saw who my parents were.”

He stayed silent. When they touched hands, he’d seen the same things she had. But instead of ignoring the signs, it was plain as day to him — the vision of Rey getting left behind, sold for booze money. It angered him, raged inside him, how they’d just left her there. Like she was nothing.

Like she wasn’t the biggest light in the whole galaxy.

“It’s not what you wanted to see,” Ben repeated. “Just like I said.”

“What is it then, if you’re so smart?” She barked back. “There’s light above the island. And there’s dark.”

“You’re wrong. There’s light and dark everywhere.”

He could see it — in that place, that dichotomy was stronger than the rest, but it was there all the same. Fear and calm. Violence and peace. Life and death. Patterns repeated throughout the island and the universe, and one could not exist without the other.

Shadows didn’t exist if there wasn’t light.

“I saw something,” she finally said. “Two people. Fighting. And someone sucking all the energy away, as if they were eating the Force. Alive. And there was nothing left.”

Ben frowned. He didn’t remember hearing of such a thing. Not in his studies, not anywhere else.

“Can I see?” He asked.

There was silence between them as he could only hear the cackling of the fire, and nothing else. The whole island held its breath.

“Yes,” she finally said, and reached out her hand.

It was just the small touch of her fingertips on his, his awkward left hand reaching for hers. It lasted merely a second, nothing more, and he could see whatever she’d seen — the way she was feeling helpless and alone, the visions, and everything else.

It was a blast through his mind, her mind hitting with all the colors and feelings at once. Rey retracted her hand immediately, but the lingering feelings were still there — their connection through the bond.

He couldn’t pick apart his thoughts. He knew he should start with the visions, with helping her, but there was that lingering tension between them, the fact that neither of them had spoken about what happened.

“It’s not what I meant,” he said. “Back at the ship. You’re not nothing.”

“It doesn’t matter what you meant,” Rey replied. “It was not the important part. I thought you were going to stand by my side. When you killed Snoke, I—”

She choked on the words. She was stronger than he was. Her emotion was only fury, and he felt his own anger rising to meet hers.

“I thought you were done with this. I said I’d help you.”

“And do what? Bring me back to the Resistance so they could kill me?”

Her cheeks burned red. “I wouldn’t let them.”

“So you’d bring me in handcuffs, and spend all the time trying to convince them,” he said. “That’s not how you bring your enemies down. The First Order doesn’t end with Snoke.”

“But it could end with you!” She shouted back, getting up. “Don’t you understand it? You could’ve ended it, Ben! And instead you chose this,” she gestured to him. “And where did it get you?”

“Everyone wanted me dead,” he said, getting up too, his anger coming in hot. “I had nothing. I took a risk. What was I supposed to choose?”

“Choose me!” She said, her voice breaking. “You were supposed to choose _me_.”


	28. Chapter 28

Rey couldn’t believe she’d said the words out loud.

They were the words she’d been thinking ever since she’d left Snoke’s ship, as she felt Ben’s presence with her every once in a while, every time she had looked in his face. It’s what she had expected him to choose when she went to him.

It’s what she’d offered, all along, and he rejected it in her face.

You are nothing, he had said. _But not to me._

“Rey.” Ben said, as if her name was the only word he could ever speak out loud, as if he were completely out of breath.

“Forget it,” she amended quickly, controlling herself once again. She didn’t have time to worry about this. He had made his chose, she’d made hers. They were all clear on that. “It’s over now.”

“It wasn’t,” Ben said, looking at her. He wasn’t close. She didn’t know whether she wanted to go to him, or run away as fast as possible. There was so much conflict inside her that she couldn’t begin to understand. “I didn’t know it was an option.”

“Of course it was,” she said. “I’d have fought for you. I’d make it work.”

She hated the way he looked at her. Like she was the only thing that mattered in this entire planet, like he was lost and didn’t know what to do. His eyes were fixed to her soul.

Rey hated all of it.

“It’s too late,” Rey said. “You made your choice back at the ship. You chose to rule over the First Order.”

“I was stupid.”

She barked out a laugh. “No, you knew what you were doing. And so did I.”

“Rey, I never meant for this—”

“None of us meant to, Ben!” She shouted again. Sky, it was so irritating. He irritated her. He always managed to make her shout even when she wanted to stay calm. She focused on the scar she’d given him, seeing that thin line cross half his face. “Maybe none of this was meant to happen. Maybe you were meant to stay on the dark side, after all.”

He stayed quiet. It was like every other conversation they had.

Rey had called him a monster, and he’d never denied it. He was a monster. But she also understood his creation.

Or at least she thought she did.

Now, looking at him, she wasn’t so sure.

She had been foolish to think that she’d ever truly understood Ben Solo.

“Down at the caves,” he finally said, “I saw something, too.”

“I’m not interested in them.”

“I’ll help you, Rey,” he told her. “I’ll help you defeat Snoke. I’ll help you end it once and for all.”

She stood open mouthed, and she didn’t know what to think. Would he truly help her? Or was it just a ploy from a boy who was as lost as she was, who didn’t truly understand what was happening to the universe?

Rey was supposed to be the light and the hope in the galaxy. She was supposed to be a Jedi. And yet she could do none of those things.

“I know you don’t have a reason to trust me,” Ben said. He didn’t try to approach her, which was a relief. “But you saved me. You brought me here. I owe it to you. To help you figure it out.”

Slowly, Rey nodded.

She didn’t have anyone else she could trust.

So she went and got the Jedi texts she’d stolen, and handed it to him.

They sat cross legged in opposite sides of the fire. Ben opened the books with a certain reverence, a feeling she didn’t know he had. She observed as his face was impassive, and there was no anger, no hurt there — it was just him absorbed within the texts, mouthing silently to himself. She observed his dark eyes following the texts, the way his hair fell a little past his shoulders and it looked like he hadn’t combed it. She almost wished to touch it, pull it behind his ear.

Ben looked up and saw her watching him.

“I didn’t know you liked to study so much,” she said to him.

Under the light of the fire, Rey could swear he was blushing.

“It’s one of the things I had,” he told her. “As you know, my parents traveled a lot. They often left me inside a ship or a base, or anywhere else. I got books instead.”

Something inside Rey stirred. She loved Leia and she had loved Han. They were both strong, legends of their own kind. But in that, they’d failed him. Rey had seen it for herself — Luke had failed him too. She couldn’t still reconcile the idea that the wonderful people she’d met had failed so badly that they let their own son fall into the grasps of the dark side.

But Ben stood there, immersed in his books and study, as lonely as before.

You’re not alone, Ben told her.

And she knew she wasn’t.

“What did you do?” Ben asked, and Rey was surprised to see him speak. “Back in Jakku?”

“Ships,” she said, as if they were carrying a normal conversation. As if he hadn’t tried prying this information from her in the Starkiller base. “I used to dismount them, fix them. Make them run. I always liked flying.”

“I hated it,” Ben confessed. “Han and Luke, they loved it. Best pilots in the galaxy, if you’re to believe them. But I just couldn’t care.”

Rey tucked away this little confession, this normal conversation between two people. For a moment, she could pretend to forget who they were.

“I never thought I’d get to leave,” Rey said. She looked at the fire, remembering the life she’d spent on the hot sands, of getting up early and seeing destroyers, of dreaming of being with the fighters. Dreaming of being bigger than she was. “It almost feels like a dream. I’m not special.”

“Of course you are,” Ben replied. His eyes were still on the texts, and he said it in such a forward manner that she could really believe him.

She smiled.

“I thought it’s why the Force connected us,” Ben said. “Because we’re special.”

“That’s very presumptuous of you.”

Ben looked up, blinking. “It’s true. It’s why I didn’t question if it was Snoke that had connected us. I always thought it was something between you and me.”

Them both. So special they were connected by the Force. She’d thought that was true. Ben was powerful with the dark, and she was powerful with the light. It was thrilling that she could feel that way.

Except all of it was an illusion.

“I never understood how he did that,” Rey said. “He has to have a lot of influence with the Force. To use it this way.”

“I didn’t know that could happen. I tried to understand the phenomenon, but couldn’t find much.”

Rey snorted. “You went to books?”

“Are you mocking me?” He asked. “I can’t tell.”

For some reason, through her anger and hurt, Rey could still laugh.

“I tried to shoot you and you were worried how it was working.”

“Excuse me if understanding the Force is more important to me than being shot at.”

“Are you mocking me now?”

There was a shadow of a smile on his face, and Rey felt her own heart flutter.

“I have it,” he finally said, handing back a book to her. “I know what the visions meant about the blades.”

He passed the book back to her, but he didn’t come closer. In the page, Rey saw an illustration of something she couldn’t figure out.

“I know what Snoke is,” Ben said. “And I know how to defeat him.”


	29. Chapter 29

Ben couldn’t believe he hadn’t seen it before.

The answers were right before him, and he didn’t even care to look. He was so absorbed inside his own questions, trying to do what he could to give in to the Dark side, taking in Snoke’s advice that he hadn’t looked at any of the answers.

“I don’t understand,” Rey said, frowning, sitting opposite him.

He liked when she frowned, her eyebrows knitting together.

“Snoke isn’t human,” Ben told her. “His control of the Force is almost impossible, unmatched by any other Jedi Knight we’ve ever heard of. Except for one thing.”

He showed her the page of the book he was pointing at.

Ben had come closer to her. They were now sitting only one feet apart, both of them with their heads tilted over the Original Jedi texts. He was glad she’d let him look at them — not only to satisfy his curiosity, but it also meant that she trusted him, to some extent. Maybe not entirely, but to some extent.

Besides, it meant he could finally study what the original Jedi meant to be.

“The Un-named?” Rey spoke, trying to decipher the words slowly. “What is that?”

“An ancient species that had control over the Force,” Ben said. “Not only control, but they could eat it away, consume it like it’s pure energy. If you use the Force against them…”

“They’ll use it against you,” Rey completed. “Like he did in the throne room.”

He nodded slowly. Rey looked up at him.

“You never told me how you did it,” Rey said. “How you hid it so well he couldn’t figure out. Or was it spontaneous?”

Of course it wasn’t spontaneous. Ever since they’d started talking, he’d started thinking about it in his mind. Rey was the only other person he’d met with the same power as him. And she had believed in him. All his life, he’d known Snoke’s voice in his mind. It was the only constant, before he could even walk or truly understand, it was there. When he killed him, the voice went silent.

It was only a spark of a plan in his mind, and he had to keep it secret. So secret that he would not tell anyone, not even Rey. When he went to Snoke’s throne room, his thought was clear — him handing Rey to him, and letting Snoke think that it was the end.

Every single second of her screaming was imprinted forever into his brain. He could never forget how he was forced to watch.

He would never forget how much she’d suffered.

“It didn’t matter in the end,” Ben finally said. “He knew.”

Rey bit her lower lip but said nothing further. “So how is it that we must defeat him? If he’s what you say he is, the Force won’t be enough.”

“You’re wrong,” Ben said. “Look what the texts say. The Jedi won’t be able to defeat him because of the balance of the Force, of only using the light side.”

“You can’t mean using the dark side.”

But this wasn’t it, either — it was about balance. True balance, of both sides, a neutrality he never believed existed before. But it was here, on the page. Their salvation.

“It’s balance,” Ben said. “Forging a lightsaber with balance.”

She looked over at him, and he could almost hear what he was thinking.

Balance. One light, one dark.

She wouldn’t be able to do it on her own.

“So we have to do this together,” she said. “Each gets a lightsaber, and together we will balance it out. And defeat Snoke.”

Rey made it sound so simple. There was no secret to it.

All they had to do was build a new lightsaber.


	30. Chapter 30

They went together in the early morning light.

Ben was ready before her, waiting by the side of the Millennium Falcon. He wasn’t wearing his First Order clothes anymore — it was a set of Jedi clothes a lot like her own, except they were all dyed black.

“So is it a rule that the dark side always wears black?”

He frowned. “What?”

“You. Darth Vader.” She gestured wildly. “What is it with black?”

“The Stormtroopers are white.”

“But they were Republic soldiers first,” Rey replied. “Where did you get those?”

“The Lairs brought them for me.”

She stopped in her tracks. “Are you serious?”

“Yes.”

She looked at him again, taking in the metal hand that was now on his stump. Much like Luke’s. The nuns probably had gotten him that one too.

“How come they bring you things?”

“They like me,” he said, shrugging.

Rey shook her head. Unbelievable. Of course they’d take to him immediately. It was almost insulting.

“You did destroy half the island,” Ben reminded her, as if hearing her thoughts.

“I did not,” Rey said, walking past him. She was trying hard not to smile.

Ben followed her inside the Falcon. At first, he was quiet, taking it in like he had last time. Rey observed his footsteps, unsure. He didn’t touch anything as he followed her, and Rey didn’t press him further. He surely had seen things in the cave, but Rey was so overwhelmed with her own emotions that she didn’t get a glimpse of his.

He was better at hiding than she was.

“Where exactly are we going?” She asked, as she settled in the cockpit.

“Ilum,” Ben told her. “The Kyber crystal caves. That’s where the Jedi used to go to.”

“I thought the Empire had destroyed it.”

Ben nodded, his eyes firm on the horizon. Rey set the initiating sequence for the takeoff, her hands automatically sliding on the control. For a second, she let herself miss Chewbacca and Han, who would be firmly complaining about things in the Falcon. Instead, she got silence.

“Only the entrance,” Ben said. “There’s another way in.”

“How do you know this?”

He pursed his lips before answering. “That’s where I got mine.”

Rey nodded again, afraid to breach the subject even more. There was an edge to Ben Solo, something she couldn’t yet grasp. Sometimes, under the moonlight, he looked lost, and then in a second it would be gone. He rested easily against the chair, his long fingers tapping against his knees.

Rey set the course, and then took them to lightspeed.

“Won’t Snoke follow us?” She asked as she tracked the course.

“It’s possible,” Ben admitted. “He has my lightsaber. Yours is broken. He might expect us to go back there to get the crystals.”

“So maybe we should go somewhere else.”

“The crystal caves of Ilum are the most sacred place to the Jedi,” Ben said. “It’s where every single legend tells you to go.”

Rey nodded again. She turned to him in the chair, just slightly.

“Your lightsaber was different. It was…”

“Cracked,” Ben told her, turning his chair to look at her. They were several feet apart, but it was the closest she’d come to him in a confined space since that doomed elevator ride towards Snoke’s throne. “It cracked when I was bleeding it.”

She hesitated before asking the next question. Ben sensed it.

“You can ask questions,” he said gently. “It’s not wrong.”

“I feel like I should know these things.”

“How?” Ben asked, so simple that Rey didn’t have to feel ashamed. “You didn’t receive any formal training. You didn’t get to study these things like I did. There’s no reason why you shouldn’t ask any questions.” He swallowed. “I told you back then. You need a teacher.”

She didn’t press further into the matter. She was glad for his help — he knew a lot more than her about books and study, and she could solve things a lot quicker. Her Jedi training with Luke consisted in only a few lessons, lessons on why the Jedi were no longer a viable path.

“Why did it crack?”

“I wasn’t strong enough,” Ben said. “A kyber crystal bonds with a Jedi, usually towards the light side of the force. For it to bond to someone to the dark side, it must first bleed. But it cracked during the process, and I kept it that way. It made it stronger.”

Rey bit her lower lip. “So you’ll have to do it again.”

“I don’t know,” Ben answered. “I guess we’ll find out.”

Rey didn’t say anything else as they made their journey. She was scared of meeting enemies without a lightsaber, scared of forging her own blade. Scared of the lessons Luke had taught her, and she knew that fear only fed to the dark side.

She shut it all out.

She had a job to finish.

Some parsecs later, they arrived at Ilum. Rey adjusted the final coordinates, and the Falcon landed with ease.

Before her, there was a pile of collapsed rocks toppled on the entry. She stood on the planet’s frozen ground, looking at the rocks and the blocked entrance.

“Come on,” Ben said. “It’s on the other side.”

Rey nodded and followed him.


	31. Chapter 31

It had been years since Ben had been to Ilum.

Before, he had used another blade, a blue generic one, one he hadn’t forged by himself. Luke had done it for him, since his training wasn’t complete. They wouldn’t let him get the crystals.

When Ben turned to the Dark Side, Ilum was one of his first missions. But he’d never told anyone else how he’d gotten inside.

It was snowing lightly as they both threaded the planet’s surface near the pile of rocks that blocked the main entrance. Rey pressed her cloak around her tighter. She’d chosen one of Luke’s old ones — it sank to the ground behind her, its sleeves just a little too short for her long arms. She looked like one of the Jedi from the old stories.

Ben felt cold, and he felt stupid for not bringing a thicker coat, but he could just get over it. It wouldn’t be long to the side entrance, something he’d kept secret and told no one else. Snoke had asked, and he hadn’t answered him — just said that he’d gotten the crystal, and that was that.

The entrance was visible now, only a tiny sliver of rock through a frozen waterfall.

“Is that it?” Rey asked, stopping next to him, her staff firmly on the ground.

“Yes.”

He didn’t want to talk further. Talking about his lightsaber was already painful enough. He’d failed at creating something as simple as a bleeding crystal. That was all he had to do — dominate it, made sure it bended to his will. And still it had cracked under his hands, red, but broken.

It had forged him an unique sword, but he knew, deep down, that it only meant one thing. He hadn’t given himself to the dark entirely.

He was still missing a piece of himself.

Ben felt tired even thinking about it.

He stopped next to the entrance, and reached out with his mind.

It was the first time using the Force since he’d left Coruscant, since he’d left Snoke. The connection was still there, and he tugged at it, so simple — and he felt the Force rise to his will, as if they were one. He closed his eyes, letting himself feel it without pressure, without commitment, without anything at all — it was between him and the Force itself, and nothing there was stopping him.

He drew it from the only place he knew where to draw it from: his anger.

The rocks exploded all around him, sending shatters of ice and stone flying. He build a shield around him and Rey, and they bounced off, revealing the entrance. Rey frowned, but she didn’t say anything as they went inside.

It led them to one of the main rooms of the temple.

Ben felt the pressure almost immediately — the suffocating and intoxicating atmosphere of the temple as they walked inside, the rocks weighting him down. He gasped for breath, and he could feel Rey grasping for it too.

“What is that?” She asked, coughing.

“The Force verges here,” Ben told her. “It’s multiplied, because of the crystals.”

Inside the temple, it was almost too dark, the stone eating away any sign of light, absorbing within its volcanic roots. The only thing that lighted their path were the crystals themselves — thousands and thousands of them, colorless, waiting to be plucked, covering from the ground to the ceiling.

Rey approached one of them, touching them with care.

The crystal didn’t modify. She looked back at him.

“What am I supposed to do?”

“Find the one that calls to you,” he told her. “It’ll respond to your touch.”

And so their hunt began.

 

#

 

It was several hours later and still they walked through the endless maze of tunnels.

From time to time, Ben marked their path, reminding himself how to get out. The Force was still bearing down on them, but he’d gotten used to the asphyxiating atmosphere. Other Jedi got lost to the caves, never to return, hallucinating in the depth of the crystal walls. He was stronger than that, and so was Rey, her footsteps determined against the weird footing.

He only followed, trying to think of some way the crystals would light up for him.

Would they light? Would he have to make them bleed again?

What did it all mean?

Would he have to face Snoke as well, at the end of the day?

He didn’t know if he was ready. Thinking about this made him angry, and the anger cut an edge to him, making him want to snap. Ben couldn’t let it get the better of him again, but it was just a second away now, as if all the unanswered questions were finally ready to drown him. Ready to take him under and suffocate him, leave him at the bottom of the dark cave never to see light again.

On the temple, as they walked, there was the history of the Jedi carved in stone. Their rise and their fall, and someone had even carved Order 66, with Jedi dead at Darth Vader’s feet. It made him shudder, seeing so many blades fallen. He’d seen massacres personally, overlooked people as they died, but this was too strong to ignore. The pain and hurt had been etched into the walls, carved with blood to never let anyone forget the tragedies.

Rey looked at them, too.

“You know,” she finally said, after a while, “Luke said it was time for the Jedi to end.”

Ben turned his face to look at her. She was deep in thought, her hands touching the carved walls.

“I can feel the hurt here,” she said quietly. “The Jedi were supposed to be good.”

“At the height of their power, Darth Vader rose,” Ben said. “He was another product of the Jedi mindset.”

Rey looked up at him. “So it’s always another person’s fault?”

“I know the story,” Ben said, with an edge of anger on his voice, something he wasn’t able to hold any longer. “Why do you think Luke wanted the Jedi to end? Because the Jedi failed. They always did.”

“It’s not true,” Rey said.

“If they hadn’t, Sith wouldn’t have risen,” Ben said simply. “Every Sith has been a Jedi, Rey. Every single one of them. Why do you think that happens?”

“The Dark side—”

“Why do you think it happened to me?”

She shut her mouth, her brown eyes sparkling in anger. “It was a mistake. You weren’t decided, and Luke—”

“Luke failed,” Ben said. “He tried to kill me. He sensed the darkness, and he tried to end it before it could begin. How is that better?”

Ben finished the sentence in a rush, remembering the night when he was fast asleep, and Luke Skywalker had stood over him. Ben had long dreamed of darkness, of sorrow, of his uncontrolled anger. They were not the path of the Jedi, but he didn’t know anything else. He never had.

“Did you know,” he continued, as calmly as he could, “that under normal circumstances, you’d never even be trained as a Jedi? You’re too old. Past the age.”

Rey shut her mouth, but Ben did not stop there.

“There’s a reason why the padawans were taken from age five. So they could forget their families. Forget where they come from. Forget their history. That and the power in your blood. It was as elitist as any other organization.”

“But they were still pure. They used the light side of the Force for good.”

Ben snorted, not being able to hold himself. “Darth Vader spent his childhood as a slave. The Jedi debated whether to take him in, if he was too old for the doctrine. They were not wise monks, trying to help the galaxy. They were only bureaucrats discussing blood quorums and age limits. To them, the children were nothing but numbers. You’d never have been accepted.”

Rey blushed, and he could only discern the color through the light of the crystals in the darkness. “But that doesn’t mean anything. Maybe they’d have found me before.”

Ben shrugged. “Maybe they would. Maybe you’d be past the age, and they would just not care. You would never get to stand here, under this temple, and find your own meaning, because you would not be a Jedi.”

There were tears in her eyes, but she did not let them fall.

“You’re lying again.”

“I wouldn’t lie to you,” he said simply. “The Jedi were as corrupt as the Sith. At least the Sith did not elude themselves with the idea of numbers, but of the true power of the Force.”

Rey turned her back to him, still shaking her head.

He never lied. Luke was right in that form — the Jedi could not be brought back. They were too worried bickering about the age where padawans trained, whether they had enough midichlorians that they never looked beyond the galaxy. They were so worried about their rules and policies that they forgot the true power of the Force.

That’s what Snoke had given him, too — he told Ben of the true power in the Force. That the dark side could understand his need, and wouldn’t repress his feelings.

Ben would never have become a true Jedi, no matter how hard he had tried.

“Let’s go get your crystal,” he finally said.


	32. Chapter 32

Rey walked ahead now, eying the crystal walls and the maze of tunnels below the temple. Every once in a while, she felt a small calling, but when she turned around, the feeling was gone. She didn’t know what was supposed to happen, if she would just touch the crystal and it would change colors for her.

She couldn’t get Ben’s harsh words out of her mind.

All she had growing up in Jakku were the old stories about the Jedi and the Empire. The way the old religion had been crudely exterminated, and only Luke Skywalker had risen and saved Darth Vader, and established the Jedi again. But of course he’d failed — she’d seen it herself. He’d threatened to kill Ben, and that was all over for him. Ben hadn’t made the decision on his own. Luke had hurried it along, putting him in danger.

They all had failed, again and again.

Which meant that eventually, she would fail too.

Rey didn’t want to think about it. She heard the stories before, and she would hear them again. The stories gave her hope. They taught her to believe in something bigger than herself, bigger than the whole universe — a Force that united all of them. The Jedi were its masters.

But she also remembered Luke’s words to her in the island, the way she’d felt the balance, no matter where she was. It didn’t exactly belong to the Jedi. The Force would not end with them.

Rey just couldn’t believe that Ben was right about the dark side, either. She refused to believe that.

There was going to be light for all of them.

She roamed the caves, with Ben always at her back. His presence was comforting, and she felt less alone as she looked for the colorless crystals. She’d gotten used to the presence of the Force, the way the walls sucked up all the remaining light and she was forced to thread in the dark.

She felt the presence in her bones, and she let go of all other thoughts. She cleared her mind, breathing, breathing easily, letting go of worries and fears and hopes. There was nothing there for her but that balance she wanted, the easing away of her feelings until she could find true equilibrium.

When she opened her eyes again, she could feel as the Force tugged her towards something. She started running, not checking whether or not Ben was following, her footsteps sure as she reached out. Her feelings were grazing something, and she turned left, then right, then left again, until she came to a dead end.

In the middle of the wall, there stood a crystal.

She knew it was hers. The way it formed, the way it reached towards her and her alone. She could feel it as if it was a part of her own self, a limb that she had been missing and did not notice until now.

She touched the crystal, and felt the connection deepen.

Suddenly, her senses were heightened, expanding over the caves and the whole temple and the entirety of the frozen planet. Every icicle expanded to her body, building it up from the inside, and she gripped the crystal in her hand, feeling the light inside her burst until she felt the explosion.

When she fell into the ground, a light blue crystal lay in her hands.

Her body was sweaty, and she no longer felt the cold. All that mattered was the crystal in her hands, still warm, and now completely a part of her. When she looked back, she saw Ben standing in the corridor, his mouth just slightly open.

She opened her hand and showed the crystal to him.

He nodded. “Good. Let’s go.”

“You didn’t get yours.”

“I don’t need one,” he said. “We have to get back before First Order soldiers track us here.”

“Ben, you said two swords. We need the balance to defeat Snoke.”

“It’s fine, I’ll manage.”

“Not without a lightsaber. You need a new crystal.”

He closed his eyes, sighing. It’s strange how she’d gotten used to his little gestures. It was something she hadn’t imagined before — when he was just another man inside a mask, and she couldn’t really see him. Now there were frowns and sighs, blinking, and the smallest twitch of his eyebrow could tell her what he was thinking.

“I didn’t bond with any of them.”

“We haven’t seen them all,” Rey argued. “We can just look a little more. Maybe it’s deeper.”

“It’s not deeper. It doesn’t matter, I just need one and I’ll make it bleed.”

“Then it’s pointless. You said—”

“One light, one dark,” Ben repeated. “True balance.”

“The dark side of the force is not—”

“Rey, I don’t want to argue again,” he said tiredly. “Let’s just go.”

But Rey was tired, rooted to the spot. Her hands gripped her own crystal, and it gave her strength. Its hardened edges cut into her palms, the pain grounding her into the moment.

“No,” she replied. “You said you’d do this.”

“I said I’d help you,” Ben retorted, and she felt the impatience in his voice. “I promised that. And that’s what I’m going to do.”

“And then what?” She demanded. “You’re just going to hide and not do your part?”

“I am doing my part,” Ben said, his voice rising. “But this is not something I can do.”

“You’re still bonded with the Force, you still moved the rocks out there. Nothing has changed, Ben. You can do this.”

“Stop telling me what to do!”

He turned, but Rey held him back, just using the Force. He turned to look at her, in dismay that she wouldn’t let this go. But all the arguments had led them nowhere till now, and she couldn’t change the past.

She knew that now, no matter how hard she tried, she wouldn’t be able to change it.

She wished it’d been different. That when Ben had extended a hand, it was so Rey could pull him up. So that they’d be together, that he trusted her, that she’d help him come to the light. She knew his conflict was there still, and she wasn’t about to give up now.

“Let me help you,” she said.

“Have you considered that maybe I don’t want help?”

He walked forward, fighting her control of the Force, one step at a time.

“That maybe it’s all an illusion to you and maybe you should’ve just let me die on Snoke’s ship? That it was the best way for me?”

“You don’t mean that.”

“Some weeks ago you called me a monster, Rey. What makes you think I’ve changed?”

“I’ve seen it.”

“Visions lie. The Force lies. You only see what you want to believe,” he said, and then he was standing so close to her that she could feel the warmth of his body, the smell of his skin and hair, so strong that she might just drown. “And the fact is, Rey from Nowhere, you just aren’t that special. Maybe you can’t save everyone.”

She stepped back, his words hitting him strong.

“It’s not—”

“Not what you meant?” Ben finished for her. She felt his fist shaking, the anger emanating from him. “Stop trying to save me. I don’t need your help.”

Rey bit back the tears and her own frustration. Just when she’d thought they both were starting to make their own amends, trying to understand. Ben threatened to push past her, but she held him by the arm this time. He turned around to face her, his hair once again wild and black, eyes like the storms that lit the Ahch-To sky.

“You think I want this?” Rey asked him. “I trusted you. I thought you were trying to change.”

“There is no change,” Ben spat. “I am, as you said, a monster.”

“Ben, don’t do this,” she told him quietly, her voice nothing above a whisper. She didn’t want to sound desperate. But as she held his arm, there was nothing else in the cave, the temple, the planet, the universe. Everything was dust as she stood face to face with him. “That’s now how this needs to go.”

“You told me yourself. What changed, Rey? What changed from then till now? I still did what I had to do.”

“But you can repent.”

Between that darkness, he bared his teeth. “I don’t regret it,” he said. “Any of it.”

Rey let him go, her arm falling to her side. Reaching for him, to that empty space where Ben Solo had stood.

“I think Luke was right,” she finally said. “Maybe there is no Ben Solo left to save.”


	33. Chapter 33

Ben only let himself break down when he was back at the isolated hut in Ahch-To.

He felt his rage burst through him, complete and taking over his body and mind, and he wanted to let it all out. Ben could punch a thousand things, break the ground, and it wouldn’t be enough. His rage wasn’t enough.

He fell back on his bed, breathing hard, his hands on his face, covering them. The metal fingers were cold against his scar, and everything else was anger and hurt and the fact that he couldn’t even breathe properly.

Ben wanted Rey to fight back. He wanted an argument, he went seeking it. When he saw her take the crystal in her hands, he felt her power as it echoed throughout the cave, and he was overwhelmed with the feeling of her. Of Rey’s true nature, of that one powerful and incandescent light, one that would never go out.

He almost choked on it, yet he held.

Ben sought his own crystal on his pocket, a piece of the caves he had brought. He knew it wouldn’t matter whichever crystal he sought, he would have to bend it to his will. Break it again, bleed it, so he could build a new lightsaber. He was sure that the book meant Snoke could be defeated this way — with both powers joined together in balance.

He had felt it before, that inner peace, when he was in the throne room with Rey. And then he’d never felt it again, restless.

The crystal sat in his palm. He knew he’d have to break it, but he didn’t have the concentration for it now. A storm was readying itself outside, thunder and lightning taking over the skies. The rain beat against his hut, the smell of rain drowning everything else on the island. He could try and bleed it now, but he doubted he was going to be successful. He didn’t have the concentration for it.

_Maybe there is no Ben Solo left to save._

He didn’t regret saying what he did back at the caves. It was his moment of truth, the moment where he could face it to himself. It was not going to change. Nothing had changed for him, from the moment he’d left Luke’s temple and turned to the dark side. The crystals proved that.

For his sword, he’d tried connecting with the crystal, reaching out to the Force, but there stood nothing but emptiness before him. This time, it wasn’t different.

He’d picked the crystal at random. From the same place as Rey took her own. It didn’t matter to him, it didn’t make a difference as to which crystal he was going to choose. He always ended up in the same place.

Always.

He hurled the crystal across his hut, and it landed on the other side with a tingling. In the rain, the noise and everything was lost.

He wished someone would show up. He wished Rey showed up, he wished he could say he was sorry — he wished he understood all of it. But all his actions, they always led him here.

It was no use regretting what he had done. He’d done it all in his right mind — went after Snoke, gave in to the dark. There were no excuses for his actions. There was a breach Rey was trying to find, and it simply didn’t exist for him.

The path that led him here. He had been born a Skywalker, no matter his name. He knew power before he could walk, and he was told he’d do great things. That he’d be the leader in a new generation of Jedi. And there was that sentiment, creeping in, lurking him towards the dark, towards this unending anger and unfulfillment.

When he went to the dark side, he went with his heart open. He cut off his ties, the best way he could, burning down all of his past, forgetting his name and everything he wanted. Forgetting his family, and just embracing it as a whole. Embracing the power, the only thing he was sure he could do. Leaving it all to burn behind him.

He’d killed his father hoping that it would still drive him forward, and in the end, it was all an abyss once again, his body disappearing into the chasm.

And still he fought, still he didn’t know.

Ben was tired. No matter what he did, it wouldn’t be enough. He wouldn’t be able to kill his past, forget it was there.

He would always be a monster.


	34. Chapter 34

Rey didn’t have time to lose.

She’d read the texts telling her of the creation of the lightsabers, and for her, it was enough. She took the broken parts of Luke’s old lightsaber, and she spent all night fixing them together, little by little. She’d forged the fire, and found instruments so she could work with them. Building the lightsaber let Rey take her mind off the things.

Let her take her mind off Ben.

Even back in the cave, she felt his anger bubbling inside him, the way the dark pulled towards him. But even then, there was something strange too — anger was more of his reaction, never his motivation. The arguments never started in anger. It was something else.

But she was done. She was done with him. If he wanted to help her, fine, but she wouldn’t wait for him anymore. She wouldn’t think he’d turn.

Luke had been right all along. Ben Solo had been gone a long time, and it was too late to try and bring him back. All she could do was let it all go.

Rey was done with crying and waiting. She’d get her destiny in her own hands, and the galaxy’s, and everyone else’s.

She would not fail again.

All night, she stood by the fire, fixing the metal, bending it with the Force. She’d never tried doing anything like that before, but it felt right. She dismounted the lightsaber slowly, putting the blue kyber crystal away, its broken edge without Force and light. She took the rest of the wires, putting them together in her mind, all the parts, twisting it so she would make the sword her own. So it’d be a reflection of her.

The sword was put together when dawn came. She waited to see it in her hands, and finally, she put her blue crystal inside it. When she pressed, the saber lit up.

It was a beautiful cyan light, the blade clean and long. She’d never seen a color this bright, and in her hands, it felt just right. It was something of balance, something she’d forged with her own two hands, and it made Rey proud.

She could be no one. It had taken her time to accept it, after the battle, having to keep the front up that everything was fine, that she had an answer to everyone’s problems and that she’d stand front and center for the Resistance.

She was the daughter of junk traders, a girl raised among sand and dead empires, and she was not going to let anyone else live like she had. Rey was done with old empires and old men, with people wanting to take control over the universe, of the debris they left behind and the lives they took. Her life had been shaped by the devastation of the battle, and she knew the ships as well as she knew the lines in her palms.

The death of the empire had shaped her and all of her friends, and she was not going to let it happen to anyone else, even if she had to burn it all to the ground. There was something that Ben said that was right — they were all children of this dangerous environment, trying to survive in a world that was still being ripped apart.

Rey was done with all the abysses and chasms.

She’d unite the whole world with her hands if she had to.

She was ready to fight.

 


	35. Chapter 35

Ben spent the next few days trying to bleed the crystal, but no matter how hard he tried, the crystal did nothing. The process was no different than what he had used before, but the pressure between his hands didn’t work. The connection with the Force was there, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t connect with the crystal. He couldn’t feel its presence, as if the crystal was dead between his hands.

Ben spent enough time trying that he knew it wouldn’t get any better.

On the third day, he decided to take a walk, and without him asking or being intentional, his body took him towards Rey’s training ground. She stood among the rocks, swinging her new blade in her hands. Her hair was sweaty, plastered against her forehead as she trained, changing the blade from hand to hand, twisting and turning.

He had never seen anything so beautiful.

She stopped when she noticed Ben looking. He looked away from her, from her flushed cheeks and her sweat, to the clothes clinging to her body.

It was hard to admit that there was more to his initial attraction than just that raw power she carried. It was about that, at first, the way she’d evaded and fought him back, her discipline and control of the Force even when she didn’t understand it fully. He wanted to teach her, fascinated with someone who was finally a match for him.

But Rey wasn’t just a match — reluctantly, he could admit that she was better than him, in every sense. She had discipline, strength. She’d lost everything and kept going. They were the same, and yet, she excelled.

She never would have fallen to the dark side. When he extended her a hand, he hadn’t understood all of that yet. All he knew was what they both shared — a past that was painful, a power that was great, and that sensation of loneliness that never truly went away. For the first time, Ben had someone who understood what it felt like.

But he’d gotten it wrong. He thought she wanted the same thing, that deep understanding, and it was enough. To leave all that pain behind. But Rey did not abandon or leave things behind. She still faced them, head on.

“What are you doing?” Rey asked, frowning, and taking Ben from his own thoughts.

“You’ve forged it,” he said, pointing to the lightsaber. “That’s good.”

He could see there were parts of scrap metal from Anakin’s broken lightsaber, but some parts were entirely new. It was shaped a little differently, with a bright handle, and a strange blue light.

Rey slowly nodded. “Yes. I’m ready.”

She spoke the words and expected him to answer. Their argument wasn’t forgotten, and his muscles felt tense again. He didn’t want to start anything again, but there was something dangerous about breaching the same subject again.

“How’s yours?” She finally asked.

He opened his mouth, his lips dry. “I’m still working on it.”

“Did you bend the crystal?”

“No.”

“So what are you waiting for?”

He didn’t know. He didn’t think there was anything else he needed to wait for, anything else that was still missing. He’d accepted his fate, he’d accepted that some things were too big to change. He knew that he had no place left still in this world, this broken place that had taken everything from him.

And still she waited for another answer.

“I can’t do it.”

He didn’t know what made him say the words. There was fire and storms in her brown eyes, and she frowned slightly.

“You said it would just bleed,” she replied. “We don’t have more time to lose.”

“I spent the last days trying,” he said. “No matter what technique I tried, the crystal did not bend. I can’t build a lightsaber with a crystal that’s not bonded with the Force.”

“Ben, we don’t have more time,” Rey said. “We spent so much time here already, the Resistance is organizing for an attack. We have to be there.”

“It wasn’t my idea to be here in the first place.”

She looked at him incredulous. “I saved your life.”

“My life is not worth that much,” Ben said flatly. “And I couldn’t do it. Maybe I read the book wrong.”

“We both know you haven’t,” she said. “What do you want me to say?”

“Rey.” Her name was the only thing he could pronounce, his tongue stuck in it, and he couldn’t bring himself to do anything else.

“You said you didn’t need my help,” she replied. Her eyes were raging, and he wanted to reach out for her face, for her hands. To assure himself in place. “You told me in the caves that you didn’t want me to save you. That you didn’t regret anything. What makes you think I want to help you, Ben Solo?”

“Because it’s what you do.”

She barked a laugh. It was a bitter sound, something that didn’t match her personality.

“Oh yes, because it has gotten me so far,” Rey replied. “I went to you. I wanted to help you, and you handed me in to Snoke, let him torture me. And still I believed. You keep convincing me that there is something there, a little spark of light. But I’m done with this. I have other people to save. I have people who care.”

“I care,” Ben said. “I didn’t mean—”

“It’s not the first time you said this,” Rey said. “Maybe don’t open your mouth only to say things you didn’t mean.”

He looked down at the lightsaber she was gripping hard in her hands, her knuckles white. Then he noticed a small crack in the metal. He frowned.

“There’s something wrong with the lightsaber,” he said.

“Don’t change the subject,” she snapped.

He looked at her again, not avoiding her gaze. He faced it, in its full brightness and rage.

“I need help,” he said again.

“I’m not going to help,” Rey said. “It’s too late. I’ve given you more than enough fair chances. And you still keep doing this. You still keep fighting.”

She pushed past him, hitting him with her shoulder. There was enough strength in it to dislocate his socket, and he turned back to see her storm past.

“Rey,” he called again, “there’s something wrong.”

She turned again. He noticed the crack getting bigger.

“Just because you can’t do it that doesn’t mean I can’t,” she said. “I won, Ben.”

“This isn’t you.”

“What do you know about me?” She asked. “What do you know of Rey from nowhere?”

She was about to snap, but there was something wrong, and he couldn’t tell what it was. Rey gripped the lightsaber more strongly, and that’s when he knew what it was.

He pulled the lightsaber with the Force.

It nudged, but it didn’t move from her hands.

Rey looked from him to the lightsaber, and her face changed completely.

“How dare you,” she said.

And then before Ben could do anything, she activated the lightsaber.


	36. Chapter 36

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AO3 is asking for donations to keep the site running, don't forget to help! (:

The lightsaber felt easy in her hands.

It was light, it was true, and it wasn’t broken.

Rey had won, and she wasn’t going to let Ben take it away from her. She would never let him take anything else from her.

Her blue saber stood, and then she lunged for him. Ben was quick — he had years of practice more than her, but Rey was fast. She remembered how emotional he’d been on the Starkiller base. She’d hurt him, cut him up, and he stumbled after her in the snow, and she never faltered.

She should have killed him back then. Spare all her troubles.

“Rey, listen to me,” he said. “There’s something wrong. Please put that down.”

She didn’t listen. She went for him, straight for his face. She’d give him a matching scar on the left side. She swiped with her blade across his torso, and Ben jumped back once again.

He used the force against her, but it was no use. She withstood his power as he went stumbling back, still up, still trying to stop her with only the Force. But she was better than him, in every sense. She would win this time.

She would win. Every. Single. Time.

“Rey!” He called again, but she could barely hear him over the wind of the mountains, the storm growing on the edges of Ahch-To, ready to bring down the skies and its rage with them. “Put the saber down! It’s wrong!”

Light and rage were bursting from her hands to her saber, and she could feel its powers within her veins. It was right — it was everything she wanted and more. She wanted to win. She wanted to beat him, prove that she was stronger, that she wasn’t scared, that she wasn’t lost, that she didn’t feel alone.

She had offered him her hand, and he’d rejected it before.

Rey was going to make him regret every decision.

Ben found a weapon finally, her staff flying to his hands. He tried to block her, but she sawed it in half with her sword. Then he called to the Force, and something flew into his hands.

A blue lightsaber.

So it was him that had left Luke’s lightsaber on her bed that afternoon.

He threw back his head, his hair flying back, and adjusted his position, wielding blue against blue.

But he wasn’t going to last. He knew that, and so did she.

He blocked her attacks, and she fought him harder, her footsteps strong, her muscles responding to all the movements, the lightsaber never felt more right in her hands as she fought him off. This is what it meant to be this powerful. This is what it meant to use the Force.

Ben tried to hack her, bringing down his leg so she’d trip, and Rey blocked him, attacking from above. He went for another maneuver, hitting her on the sides with enough impact to break her ribcage. She felt it crack under his strength, and he tried to take the lightsaber from her, but Rey was far from done.

She swung right, and hit his shoulder. It sizzled with energy and fire, and Ben screamed. Rey was satisfied to hear the sound, paying off her efforts. Ben jumped back, trying again to hit her knees so she’d drop.

“Rey, listen to me,” he said, as both of them fought each other off. She swung left, and he swung to meet her. Their blades met over and over again, and the lightsaber was a shock of lightning in her hands, burning her, but still they kept predicting each other’s movements, meeting each other at every single turn.

He was her true match.

“Put the sword down,” Ben told her. “It’s wrong. It’s going to break you.”

“No,” she said, “it’s going to break _you_.”

Ben faltered, and she took her opportunity. Rey jumped at him, and pushed him back with the Force. She let the lightsaber go down the cliff and into the water, and she dragged Ben over to the cliff, standing over him, panting.

She was sweaty, her head was hurting. She could see little spots of light in her visions.

When she looked at the ground again, she saw her father.

She thought she’d forgotten his face, blocked out the memory in the best way she could. It was so long ago that there was only a broken piece of her imagination there, but she knew.

She stepped back, as her father looked at her.

“I did leave you,” he said. “I’m sorry, Rey. I’m sorry,” he begged. “Please put the sword down.”

“It’s not enough now,” Rey spat, and swung the blade over to him.

Kill the past.

Let the true legends live.

She brought the sword down, through the shoulder blade, but her father reached out to stop it. He held her hands, and for a second, she didn’t know what she was seeing — a man who’d abandoned her, or someone else, holding her back.

She felt dizzy, broken, but the lightsaber gave her strength. She felt something crack, and she was still fighting, still trying to win this. One more thing. One more thing she had to do, she had to finish.

Rey had to prove she was stronger than all of them.

She drove the lightsaber harder, and someone screamed, but it wasn’t the sound of her father.

“Rey, you can fight this,” the voice said, and she almost stopped. She knew that voice. It was someone she knew. Someone she trusted. “Stop this.”

And then she felt the lightsaber fighting back, and she wasn’t sure what to do. One part of her wanted to finish this, end it before something else happened.

Another part of her was listening to that voice.

In her moment of hesitation, the person in the ground pushed back, held the lightsaber in his hands. But instead of her father, there was Ben Solo, standing, with the lightsaber carved into his left shoulder.

Rey widened her eyes and let go. Ben held the sword, and it broke into the ground. Rey opened her mouth, still dizzy. The lightsaber lay between them, broken in half once again.

Ben panted, looking at her, and Rey still felt that she could rage, and break everything. She looked at his dark eyes, and she was lost. She went forward, her knees dropping in weakness, and Ben caught her.

The last thing she felt before blacking out was him taking her in his arms, carrying her home.


	37. Chapter 37

Ben nursed Rey for five days and five nights.

The fever took over her body, burning her from the inside. Her crystal had broken in half after the battle, and its light was completely gone, faded and broken. The lightsaber too, and he knew that it was cracked because she couldn’t really put the right feelings into it.

After he’d built his lightsaber, the fever had taken him too, but he’d fought. His crystal was broken, but there was power in it too.

But Rey had done something deeply wrong, and the crystal and the metal had bent into something that shouldn’t exist. The fever kept burning, and Ben kept changing her sheets, kept bathing her in wet cloths. The caretakers helped, bringing new things when he asked, and he kept to her bedside. He didn’t sleep. He couldn’t stop looking at her, as she muttered, as her body was sick, as she retched and then collapsed, as she trembled in cold and then her body burned once again.

He’d never been one to take care of sick people, but he hadn’t left her. The small moments when she was quiet, he didn’t sleep. He read the books, searching for an explanation for this phenomenon, something he’d never experienced before. He knew Jedi had to be balanced and certain to build their sabers, that the sabers was representing something they believed. It wasn’t just a sword or a weapon. It was everything in the Jedi’s essence, something that made each person unique.

What Rey had put into it made her sick and hallucinating.

In her sleep, she muttered. Sometimes she called her parents, sometimes she called Luke, Leia or Han. Sometimes she’d mutter about Finn or Poe or her other resistance friends.

When she called his name, his heart stopped.

Sometime in the fourth night, she opened her eyes.

“Ben?” she asked.

“I’m here,” he answered her.

“Please don’t leave,” she said.

She reached out a hand, her palms clammy with sweat. He didn’t hesitate before he took it within his own hand, his fingers intertwined with hers as if they were the most fragile thing in the entire world.

“I won’t,” he told her, and Rey went back to sleep.

He still wasn’t comforted as he measured her fever. He’d touch her forehead from time to time, feeling the temperature. It wasn’t just a disease of the body. It was something that had to do with spirit and the Force, and that he just couldn’t fix it.

So he waited. Five days, five nights, getting only a little sleep, and then just when he couldn’t help himself. He asked the nuns to change her clothes from time to time, and he kept pouring cold water over her fever, and blankets when she was shivering. In between fever breaks, Rey projected her own consciousness over the island, pouring images outward. He glimpsed the Jakku desert, the broken insides of the Imperial ships, memories and other losses. A whole life lived in the desert, waiting for the day someone would come and get her.

She wasn’t conscious when she projected the images, her mind lost fighting the fever in her body as she struggled with reality. Sometimes there were images of fire, and Luke Skywalker, and more often than not, the two of them fighting on the snow of the Starkiller base.

He glimpsed as if he was in her head. The way he’d tied her up, the fear in her mind as she tried to battle his mind control. He knew she wasn’t just another regular girl, whose mind he could break in and get out without any damage, without having to fight her. It was torture for her — being tied up, battling with her mind, her back straight.

When she’d given him the scar, she’d meant to kill him with every cell in her body.

And through all of this, he never let her hand go.

He fought against sleep, but eventually, it took over him.

 

#

 

He woke up in the middle of the night, and realized Rey was looking at him.

Rey was clearly still sick — her eyes were unfocused, the fire showing the sweat in her arms and forehead. She blinked, but still she looked.

He’d fallen asleep with her hands still in his. Rey looked down at them.

“Ben,” she said. “I’m happy you’re here.”

“Shh,” he told her. “You should rest.”

His voice was not above a whisper. He touched her forehead and she was boiling hot. It was a miracle she wasn’t dead. The temperature was too high for any normal person to hold.

When Rey looked at him, there was no hate in her eyes.

He was afraid he might wake up at any moment and find out it was all a lie.

“You came with me,” Rey said, a smile touching on her lips. “I knew you would. I knew you’d turn.”

Ben opened her mouth. Rey continued to project the images, and he realized she thought they were somewhere else — back at Snoke’s ship, back before anything else had happened. Back before he was so sure of what he was doing.

“Rey,” he said only, gripping her hand.

“I’m glad,” she repeated, closing her eyes. “I was so scared. When I went to the ship. I fought Luke. I never told you that, did I?”

No, she hadn’t.

“When he interrupted us,” she said. “I turned. I took my lightsaber, and I was so frustrated — I was so angry that he’d let his old age blind him. That he’d failed you. Because there’s light in you, Ben.”

He didn’t contradict her.

Her other hand touched his face, and he leaned in to her touch. He knew it was only an hallucination, something that she was imagining. But still he longed for it, an ache inside his chest that he didn’t know he had.

“I thought I might be wrong,” she said. “I was so scared you wouldn’t come with me. That you’d stay behind. But you’re here.”

“Yes, I am.”

Rey smiled at him, and he felt like it was capable of turning all his bones to dust. Nothing had any meaning next to that smile, that light she tried so hard to shine on others.

She caressed his face, her fingers running through his scar.

“Ben Solo,” she finally said. “You’re not alone.”

He put his fingers over her hand, holding it against his face. That moment would last only a second before she went to sleep again, and he knew it was nothing but lies. A hallucination of her fever.

But to him, the moment lasted forever.


	38. Chapter 38

Rey wasn’t sure when she had finally woken up.

She felt her body cold, sweaty. Her hands were pale and her eyes hurt when she opened them, her arms weak at her side. There was some difficulty as she opened her eyes and recognized where she was.

She was inside her hut, the one she used to sleeping in after Luke had blown her first one apart. And in the chair next to her bed, sat Ben Solo.

He looked tired, too. His dark hair fell over his eyes, and his face was pale, the red scar crossing half of it. But he looked peaceful, asleep — there wasn’t anger, there wasn’t all that many feelings. And it wasn’t like back at the Falcon, when she’d just rescued him from Snoke’s hands. In that time he spent on the island, he looked healthier, more secure. Less worried about everything.

As if he felt her looking, he opened up his eyes.

Rey tried to sit up immediately, pretending she wasn’t observing him.

“Don’t,” he said. “You need to rest.”

“What happened?” She asked.

She only remembered vague things. She remembered training with the saber, hoping she was ready to leave for the Resistance in time for the attack. She remembered talking to Ben and then…

Nothing. Her mind went blank. As she tried to force the memories, she had vague flashes.

“The lightsaber didn’t work,” Ben told her.

Rey frowned. Her hair was plastered against her forehead and she moved it aside. She was sure she saw something else, too, in the island.

She froze when she remembered.

“I thought I saw my father.”

Ben looked up to meet her eyes. “You were hallucinating. Anything you saw was your imagination.”

Rey frowned once more, trying to recall what happened. Then she looked at Ben’s shoulder, where the lightsaber had carved a hole. It was burnt and ugly, but he’d managed to salve some of it, but it was an ugly scar right above his shoulder blades.

She remembered putting the sword there.

“Did I do this?”

“It wasn’t you,” he said quickly. “Not everyone can build the lightsaber right the first time. And if it’s wrong…”

It goes deeply wrong. So wrong that she’d been sick, hallucinating, out of herself. Rey had been so angry — anger at her parents for abandoning her, anger at Luke for dying, and even angry at Ben, who had never made it any easier.

“How long was I out?”

He didn’t answer.

“How long, Ben?”

“Five days.”

Rey opened her mouth, making the calculations in her mind. It couldn’t be.

“This means I didn’t go to the Resistance,” she said slowly. “That means…”

Rey sat up, throwing away her covers, standing on wobbly legs. Her vision went dizzy and she held out an arm for balance, and without thinking, she reached out for the first thing she found.

It was Ben’s metal hand.

She was the first to let go, an electric current burning through her body. She stepped back. “I missed it,” she said. “They were counting on me, and I couldn’t finish it on time.”

“Don’t blame yourself.”

She whipped around to face him. “Is that what you keep telling yourself? It is my fault. I couldn’t build the saber. I couldn’t do the only thing I was supposed to do.”

Her voice broke at the end of the sentence, and the whole universe dawned in her eyes.

She’d failed. She didn’t get there on time. They were counting on her, all along, to find answers, to help, to be the beacon of hope, and she couldn’t do it.

She’d failed again and again and again, the weight of the galaxy heavy on her shoulders.

They should never have trusted her. She was never going to be a true Jedi.

“I’m sure they are fine,” Ben told her, interrupting her thoughts. She felt air choke on her throat, like she couldn’t breathe. “The Resistance has survived worse. They’ll be all right without you.”

“You don’t understand. They waited for Luke.” She shook her head, her brain still dizzy. “We wanted Luke to save us. He was their only hope. And now they had me. And I did the exact same thing. I came all the way here, and I ran away.”

She gulped down, looking back at him.

“You didn’t ran,” Ben said, “you were just—”

“I should’ve been there,” she interrupted. “They needed me. And all I did was come all the way over here, on a whim, hoping it was going to solve something. Following that stupid part of me that thought I could save you.”

She watched as the words sunk into him. She was rambling now — she wasn’t even sure she meant it.

Except she had. Back at the caves, she’d meant it too. She was tired of Ben Solo. She was tired of thinking that she was the one who had to save him, that if he didn’t turn they wouldn’t win, that somehow it would compensate all of her efforts.

But she was scared and alone and she never thought she could do this by herself. When she looked at him, she realized that it was all just a bunch of lies she told herself to keep it quiet. To not disappoint anyone else.

In the end, she was no better than him, and the anger consumed her, too.

She was going to scream at them all.

“It’s not how this goes,” Ben finally said. “You know it as well as I do. There’s no turning back for what I did.”

“Did you even try?” She asked him, clutching her belly, hugging herself so she’d keep it together just a second longer. “Or were you really a self serving bastard all along?”

“I was trying to help you, Rey.”

“And what good did it do?” She demanded.

She was so exhausted. She wished she could sleep for five more days, five months, five years. She was tired of fighting battles that didn’t seem her own. Tired of the burdens they were all putting on her, on expecting her to defeat Snoke, expecting her to do it all.

Rey couldn’t.

She never would be able to do it all.

Luke Skywalker was right. The Jedi must come to an end.

“You can try again,” Ben insisted. “The sword—”

“You didn’t build yours, Ben!” She shouted, letting the words slap him back with sheer force. She was done with keeping it all inside her. “You didn’t even try! All this time you’ve spent here, and what did you learn? What are you doing?”

She stepped closer to him, facing him again.

It was like the throne room all over again. She thought she’d walked away the first time, that she’d try and leave it alone, that she could heal and become what everyone wanted her to be.

But Rey wasn’t sure she liked what she was becoming.

She wasn’t even sure she was becoming something at all.

“Tell me,” she said. “Tell me that you’re going to make up for it.”

And then when she thought he’d argument, that he’d fight back, that he’d piss her off just like he always did and still turn the argument, he didn’t.

Ben Solo only looked at her.

“It’s all right to be scared,” he finally said. “I know that’s what you’re feeling right now.”

“I’m not scared,” Rey said. “Fear is—”

“The Dark side, I know,” he replied. “Why do you think I know it so well, after all these years?”

He gulped down, but he didn’t stop.

“You asked me if I hated my father once,” he said. “You asked me why I did what I did, and I never got to tell you the truth. And the truth is: I’m afraid. All the time.”

Rey could not find the words to reply. Ben looked straight at her, and he didn’t hesitate, and he didn’t blink.

“My parents gave me to train when I was six,” he said. “All my life, I heard the same things. That I was the next in line for the Jedi. That I had a bloodline I should honor. Every single person I met, and I thought what a disappointment I would be. I never even wanted to become a Jedi. They never gave me that chance.”

He waited till he met her eyes.

“So I know you’re scared,” he told her. “You’re scared you won’t be able to make it. You’re scared that you’re going to get there and disappoint them all.”

Rey shuddered, stepping back. The truth hurt like thorns at her sides, blossoming and bleeding. She’d avoided using that words — even frustration and anger. Those were not the ways of the Jedi.

And yet she was here, ever so scared, ever thinking that she was never going to go into the right direction. Thinking that whatever it took, it was never going to be enough.

She was never going to be enough for any of them.

And all those expectations, all those things they put on her — and worst, the ones she expected of herself, brought her down. She’d orchestrated her own fall. She didn’t need any help for that.

The mighty Rey, last of the Jedi.

Fallen, just like the others.

She looked back at Ben, wondering what was hurting more. What she was still so angry about, something that stood unsolved in her path. The fact that she’d trusted him, that she’d put her faith in him, and he had broken it.

She realized that she wasn’t expecting to save Ben Solo.

But Rey expected him to save _her_.

“The Jedi were wrong, all along,” Ben said. “You know this. You were alone and scared your whole life. Don’t let it consume you.”

“Like it did with you?” She spat the words with anger and hurt.

Skies, she wanted to hurt him. She wanted him to go away, she wanted him to turn so she’d never have to see his face again. Her feelings raged inside her, now too bottled inside, and she couldn’t wait any longer to let them out.

She was alone, and no one in the entire world could understand what that was like.

Least of all Ben Solo.

“You were supposed to turn,” Rey said, her voice breaking as the rest of her broke in a thousand tiny pieces. “You were supposed to help. You were my hope, Ben.”

Ben shook his head. “It didn’t have to be this way.”

“You could’ve made the right choice,” Rey said. “I meant it. You could have chosen me. And I would’ve chosen you, too.”

She turned to go, and Ben held her arm, swinging her around so they faced each other. His hand was warm against her own, his face close.

“I choose you now,” he said. “You don’t have to go back. We never do. We can stay here, go to some other planet. Start again. Far away from everything else.”

Rey waited, read into her eyes what he meant.

But in the end, even after all this time, nothing had changed. Because she failed here as well.

“I don’t want to run.”

“All they’ve done was hurt you,” he replied quietly. “They want you to save them so desperately that no one ever considered that it would be a burden on you.”

“A burden I accept gladly.”

“Something that made you fail,” he said, frowning. His voice was heavy now, too, and Rey didn’t realize they both had stopped shouting, and now it was only the raw emotion of both of them, masks fallen, everything else thrown into the fire.

There were not going to be any legends or heroes here.

And again, she felt as the abyss reached between them. Because as fundamentally lost as she was, Ben was even worse. He did not see any little bit of light. He didn’t believe.

“I am, as you said before, nothing,” Rey found the words, raspy as sand in her mouth.

“That’s never what I said.”

“I’m not the one who gets to save you, Ben,” she said. “The only person who can do that is yourself.”

“Rey, please.”

The way he said the word ‘please’ almost broke her. It shattered her heart, as if there was anything left, though she didn’t think that was possible. Tears swelled in her eyes.

“I’m done,” she spat. “I’m done with you, I’m done with everything else. I fought so hard — I was hoping, always hoping, that you’d do something, that maybe you’d see the light in the end.” She took a deep breath, and held back her tears. “But I was wrong. You win. You always find a way to win, don’t you?”

And then she walked away, back into the loneliness and the devastation waiting for her outside.

Embracing the only things she ever knew.

 


	39. Chapter 39

Ben watched as she went, and he couldn’t even move to get her back.

His body and mind screamed in that direction, willing him to move, asking for anything that wouldn’t let her walk away from him again.

But he did nothing of the kind. Rey went outside, and he didn’t move. He waited till he could hear her footsteps far away, and then he exited through the door, trying to get a breath of air.

Everything spun on his head, her words, her wounds, and the whole universe around him. He thought he’d learned — after being down there in the caves, he thought there was still something he could salvage, something he could do to compensate.

Except he’d been wrong. He thought that he was helping her, thought he’d take her to Ilum and be done. Solve his problems and that was it.

But of course it hadn’t been enough.

That wasn’t what was working.

Ben had said one thing, and one thing only — he wouldn’t let Rey fail. But in her eyes, it was exactly what she did. She hadn’t been there in time. She hadn’t finished her sword. She hadn’t made it through.

And the only person he cared about turned his back on him.

Ben made his way to the temple, his chest aching, everything in his body hurting. It wasn’t physical pain, it was worse than that. It was the sensation that nothing would work out, the sensation that crept inside him and didn’t let go.

When he entered the Jedi temple, everything was empty, just like it was the last time. The stones were dark, bus instead of claustrophobic, they calmed him. Here, it was solitude, all by itself, silence when everything inside him was roaring.

He moved to the center, where the symbol was torn in the middle — half light, half dark.

Ben lowered himself, sitting by it, splashing his fingers in the water. He knew he went wrong, he just was never sure where. He’d never truly known.

The moment where he needed guidance, everyone else vanished. There was only one other person he trusted in this world, and she wasn’t talking to him.

He’d ruined the only thing that still mattered.

Ben ran his fingers through his hair, pressing his hands against his forehead. He didn’t know what to do and what he’d follow. There was nothing else for him out there. All that he’d worked for, gone in a single moment, and when he looked at the water, he couldn’t tell who he truly was.

Who was he? Someone who liked to study, someone who got left behind by his family, someone who never truly knew how to deal with the expectations. Someone who got easily convinced by the power that was promised, the only way he could achieve things. Someone who had ran far away just in the hopes that he wouldn’t be a failure.

Except that’s what he was, anyway. He had never been a true prodigy either on the dark side. He’d learned from Snoke, tried to climb the ranks of the Knights of Ren, and still he hesitated. When he closed his eyes, he could see his father, and Ben’s sword through him. He wished he’d done it differently. Everything else, but especially this.

But he knew that he was too weak to make those choices. He’d found the easy way out, and that’s what kept him there.

Now he wasn’t so certain as before. One year ago, he’d never doubted anything at all. Now, it’d become worse. Snoke was right. He was nothing but a child in a mask, a mask he’d never be able to get rid off. A mask that would always cling to him.

And still he didn’t know who he was.

He was as lost as when he’d begun, and just as lonely.

He smashed his remaining fist against the stone, and it drew blood. It dripped red onto the pool, making the black and white parts look mixed.

“I thought you might come all the way over here again,” a voice said, and Ben looked up to see his old master come in.

Luke Skywalker looked like he had when Ben had seen him the last time — his beard shaved, his hair combed, and that strange twinkle in his eyes that were the same as his mother’s. Ben didn’t move. He was so busy last time that he hadn’t really looked how much Luke had aged, all these years here in this island.

“Not going to attack me, then?” Luke asked. “I take it as a good sign.”

“So is this temple just a parade of ancestors telling me I made bad choices?”

“Yes, that much is clear,” Luke replied, a smile on his face. He didn’t look afraid. He never looked afraid. But this time, he was peaceful, and he sat next to Ben, overlooking the fountain.

Ben didn’t move.

Crait seemed so distant now. A thousand years ago, entire universes away. He had been so angry then, angry that Rey had turned her back on him, angry at the rebels, angry that Luke Skywalker had still shown up and he wasn’t dead. It hadn’t been a real battle, though he’d tried — he’d tried so hard to end it there.

Burn it all to the ground.

But somehow, even within the ashes, new life always grew.

“I meant what I said,” Luke told him. “I did fail you, Ben. I couldn’t fix my own mistake.”

“Were you really going to kill me that night?”

Ben looked at his uncle, for the first time, trying to breathe. Trying to let all that anger and resentment and everything else go. Focusing on the moment.

“I thought about it,” Luke said truthfully. “It doesn’t make me proud.”

“Did my mother know? Did my mother know why I turned?”

Luke shook his head. “I was too ashamed to tell her. She trusted me with her only son, and I couldn’t keep my promises. I couldn’t keep you safe.”

“There is no safe,” he said. “My father told me that. He said there was too much Vader in me.”

“That’s not a bad thing,” Luke replied. “Not necessarily. Anakin was a passionate man, someone who struggled a lot. And in the end, he saw the light.”

“He died. Is that the only way?”

Luke sighed. “Dying is an easy way. Living is much harder.”

“Says the dead man,” Ben replied, not being able to hold himself. “He got his redemption.”

“Of course he didn’t,” Luke said. “There are many who never made the connection between Anakin Skywalker and Darth Vader. It was a secret well-kept, but what he did saved the whole galaxy. What Darth Vader did.”

“So what does it mean?” Ben asked. “Did you come here to give me another lesson I don’t understand?”

“I’m here to say you’ve never been alone,” Luke replied. He turned back to the fountain. “I made a lot of mistakes, and one of them was not believing in this before. Look at this pool, Ben.”

Ben looked again. It was cut in half. Half was white, half was black.

Luke splashed his hands, and the water rippled, mixed.

“What do you see?”

“A pool,” Ben said stubbornly.

Luke smacked his ear. Ben looked half astonished, half enraged that the apparition still managed to do that. He was ten, all over again, sitting inside a hut, reading his books, wanting to be left in peace.

“Look again,” Luke ordered.

When the waves were mixed, he couldn’t distinguish the light from the dark.

“It’s gray.”

“That’s right,” Luke said. “You were not wrong on some things. The Jedi got it wrong. They were too preoccupied with their own moral codes that they never looked at the young children. That they never truly let anyone else feel. You were a child, and you were confused, and I’ll never forgive myself for that one mistake.”

Ben watched the pool until the gray settled, and he was back at staring at the two black and white, set apart once again.

For the first time, Ben felt really at peace with himself.

It wasn’t just that he’d let go of the anger, that he’d admitted that anger within himself, that he’d understood what it meant. When he told Rey, it was the first time he ever told anyone.

His fear had kept him at bay, seeking for more, always scared that he was jumping into a precipice, that he was not going to be enough. That every single expectation put on him would end up in crushing disappointing for everyone around him. And that fear kept him alive, every single day, feeding on him, keeping him strained, with two feet on the ground.

It was that fear that was still acting, even when he didn’t want to anymore.

“I don’t know what to do,” Ben finally said, turning to Luke. “None of it is like I imagined it would be.”

“None of us imagine things the way they’re going to be.”

“I had a vision. Rey by my side,” he said quietly, his eyes going back to the pool. “That moment, I was so sure. I thought if I killed Snoke, everything would work. She would come with me.”

He rolled his tongue inside his mouth, his thoughts taking him all the way back to that day. His spirit was a jumble of words, and he couldn’t fix them, not in the right way. Not in the way that would make her stay.

But maybe he’d never get her to stay. The moment only lasted in the battle when they had common enemies, and then it was over. He reached for her, and she reached for him, but neither of them met each other.

She was still holding on to some things, and he was holding on to others.

Neither of them had let go.

“When she showed up here, I had only seen that kind of power in you,” Luke said wisely. “And strong-willed too. She didn’t want to back down. And still, you two are connected. I didn’t see that coming.”

“Snoke connected us.”

Luke snorted. “No one controls the Force for that,” he told Ben. “The Force is mysterious, and it only connects those it wants to. Those whose fates are too deeply interconnected to never be set apart.”

Ben felt his own hear skip a beat.

“It’s terrible,” Luke said, his eyes turning to Ben. “When two people who deeply care about each other get torn apart because each expect the other to become someone else. There is no greater tragedy than that.”

Ben remembered the tears in his eyes, the way she reached for the lightsaber, the way the whole ship was breaking apart, and the only thing he could see was the girl standing right in front of him.

Nothing else had mattered.

He wished he’d been less stupid. He wished he had chosen her, from the beginning, trust his fate that way, just let everything else go. Instead, he’d only made it worse. He’d gotten a chance and wasted it.

How many times would he do that again?

How many other chances would he even get?

Ben felt breathless, a hurt in his chest again as the anger rose, and the fear with him. The fear that was his only motivation, the thing that had kept him alive, the fear that was the only way he knew how to move forward, and still he stood paralyzed there, realizing everything Rey had said before to him.

She was done. She wouldn’t give him anymore chances.

But she was also right — it wasn’t up to her. It was never up to her.

It had always been his own choice.

And it was time, he once again, did one thing that was worth everything else in his life. One choice that wasn’t influenced by his past or his fear of the future, or anything else that would bring him down.

But there was always that anger, those feelings he wouldn’t be able to control.

Ad if reading his mind, Luke said, “Anger is not something bad, Ben. Neither is fear. The problem is what you decide to do with them.”

“I’ll never be able to get rid of them,” Ben said. “It’s all I’ve known.”

“You’ve known a lot more than that,” Luke told him. “Search it, and you’ll find it. You’ll know there’s a lot more than just the dark.”

Luke got up, adjusting his robes, looking at Ben one last time.

“And what if I can’t get rid of it?” Ben asked, his voice trembling just a little. But still ready to try — ready to begin. Begin right this time. “What if it’s always there? Does that make me a monster?”

“No, Ben,” Luke said kindly. “It makes you human.”


	40. Chapter 40

Rey didn’t know where to go.

Her lightsaber was broken, the crystal inside it losing its shine, becoming colorless once again, as if she hadn’t bonded with it the first time. She tried fixing the sword, but it was no use. The only swords left were the ones that didn’t feel quite right, the ones that weren’t the ones she’d made.

She was so proud of it, and it had gone wrong.

Like everything else while she was on the island.

She wound up, as always, in the Millennium Falcon. She wasn’t sure what it was about the ship that made it so comforting, or less demanding of her. It smelled like home, and she got a blanket Chewie had left there the last time, wrapping herself around it, sitting on the old engines.

Here, there were no people expecting her to be something else. To carry the same burden that Luke had — the obligation of bringing hope to the galaxy, of always being more than she was. Of being a legend.

She was tired of heroes and legends. They weren’t things that existed. Even Luke Skywalker had fallen in the end, and become a sad old man locked away in an island trying to forget his mistakes.

Rey was too tired to think of it, but she knew she still had her duties — she couldn’t run away from them. She had waited enough.

With her heart hammering inside her chest, she called the only person in the galaxy that made her feel entirely safe.

Finn picked up after a few seconds.

“Rey?” He wasn’t sure at first, then opened up a smile when he was able to see her face through the hologram. Rey wiped any other remains of tears that were still there. “Rey!”

“Finn, I am so sorry,” she said almost immediately. “I know that the plan’s deadline—”

But before she could finish, Finn was shaking his head. “It didn’t work. Snoke’s moved his troops, didn’t make an appearance. It was a trap, and he didn’t fall for it.”

Rey could almost laugh from the amount of relief she felt in that moment.

“But you weren’t here,” Finn said in a quiet tone. “What happened?”

She wiped her forehead. “I tried to forge a lightsaber, but apparently, when you don’t do it right, your body gets really sick.”

Finn’s eyes widened in worry. “You shouldn’t be out there all on your own. You could do it here.”

“I needed answers. I needed…” her voice faded. “I needed more time.”

Just as she was speaking, another person came out from a door behind Finn. Rey’s eyes widened in surprise when she realized it was Poe Dameron, only wearing a towel.

Finn looked back too quickly, rolling his eyes. “Must you?”

“This is my room,” Poe complained. “You get out of here, then.”

Rey opened her mouth, taken by surprise, not sure what to say. “Are you—”

“Dating?” Poe said, approaching his face to the camera. “Yes, ma’am. Do I need your approval? I’ll have you sign the paperwork.”

Despite the way she was feeling before, Rey laughed, out loud. Finn’s dark skin was hiding the most of his blush, but he still looked like he wanted to crawl inside a hole and disappear. But for that one moment of joy, Rey figured it was all worth it.

“Well, you’re approved, Commander,” Rey said, putting her fingers to her forehead.

“You okay?” Poe’s tone changed, all of a sudden. “We need our Jedi back right here. We miss her.”

Rey smiled, but it didn’t really reach her eyes. “I’ll be there soon.”

It was the most lame promise she could make. She wasn’t even sure what soon meant. After she’d tried forging another sword? After she knew she was sure she could go back there and face Snoke?

Poe smiled, kissed Finn quickly and left. Finn was still a little embarrassed, but he was trying hard not to smile back at Rey.

“So this is new,” he said.

Rey smiled. “It’s good. Among everything else, you still found this good thing.”

“I have a remarkable talent for finding good things,” Finn replied back with a smile. Rey remembered when they’d met in Jakku. That one good thing among the rubble. And then he was serious once again. “Poe’s right, Rey. When are you coming home?”

“I’m not sure I’m ready to go.”

“Rey, tell me what’s going on,” he said. “Ever since you came back, you acted strange. I waited, hoping it was something you’d figure it out, but then… nothing.”

“I just…” Rey didn’t know where to start. She wanted Finn’s comfort. She wanted him to tell her that everything was going to be fine, no matter what happened, no matter what was after. She wanted somebody to be able to hold her, when she wasn’t able to hold herself. She changed subjects. “What’s going on over there?”

Finn sighed. “Snoke’s taken half of the outer rim, and stationed his fleet at the center of the galaxy. And he’s still on the hunt for you.”

Rey bit her lower lip. She was wasting time here. They were all out there, waiting for her to figure a way out, and still there wasn’t anything she could do.

She was stuck here, imprisoned in this never ending cycle.

“I’m going to figure it out, Finn, I promise,” she said. “It’s all I’ve been working on, all this time.”

“And?” He raised one eyebrow. “All you’ve told me is you were sick.”

“I’m better now,” she said stubbornly, even though her body wasn’t fully healed, and she felt lost only moments ago.

“No you aren’t,” Finn cut her off. “You’ve told me nothing since you got there, and even worse than before. Talk to me, Rey.”

“I’m fine.”

“You look like you’ve been through death and back,” Finn said. “So when are you going to stop hiding?”

“Hiding what?”

“I know he’s there with you,” Finn said.

Rey’s face went white.

“You don’t have to lie,” Finn said, before she had time to reply. “In the chaos, I thought he’d just gotten away. But I always felt like you were hiding something.”

“I never meant for this to happen.”

Finn sighed, but still he looked at her. He didn’t turn away.

“You can tell me anything,” Finn said. “I’ll always be your friend, Rey.”

Rey bit her lower lip, unsure of what to say.

And then she decided that she was done keeping it all to herself.

So she started telling Finn everything. She told him about Luke and the island, and that he’d refused to train her at first. She told him about the Force bond, and how she’d learned what happened to Ben. She told him about going to Snoke’s ship and meeting Ben there, and the fear in the bottom of her stomach that never allowed her to settle, and that she was so sure that he’d turn. She told him about how broken she felt when she failed, and that Ben hadn’t come with her. She told him about her insecurities and the fact that she was carrying the legacy of the Jedi on her back. She told him about the days on the island with Ben, how they’d fought, how she thought he was changing, and how she was wrong once again.

And how she thought she was running away, all along, and that she couldn’t do it. She couldn’t be the beacon of hope the Resistance wanted to be. She would not bring back the Jedi.

When she was done, Finn said the only words she didn’t think he would.

“So screw them.”

“Screw them?” Rey sounded incredulous. She’d just poured her biggest insecurities through this call, and those were Finn’s only words.

“Rey, you deserve more than this,” Finn said. “Maybe the Jedi were wrong, and Luke was right about them having to end. They failed Kylo, they failed you. You can’t live like this. You can’t live alone your entire life, on some island in the middle of nowhere, just having to teach and be wise.” He took a breath. “The Jedi ended for a reason. Just let them die. Do what you think is right.”

“I don’t know what’s right,” she said quietly. “Leia said they needed the Jedi back. _I_ needed the Jedi back.”

“But not this way,” Finn said. “We want there to be hope. For people like you. For people like me.”

Finn took another deep breath.

“Rey, I grew up to be a soldier,” he said. “That’s what I spent my whole life training as. I didn’t have a family. I didn’t have anything but a number, and they put me in a battlefield and I froze. All my life, towards that one thing. The one thing I couldn’t do,” he said. “We all feel afraid and lost. You don’t have to shape the future for everyone. We all grew up in this screwed notions of legacy and what is left in the past.”

 _Let the past die_ , the words echoed back to Rey. And now being spoken by someone else entirely — but someone else who had also experienced a lonely childhood, someone who was shaped just like her. Together, they were no one, and nothing.

But she knew it wasn’t true.

They were so much more than the remains of the Empire, their backgrounds and their childhood. They had to be.

“I don’t know if I’ll ever be ready,” Rey said, looking down at her feet as she hugged her legs, feeling small once again. “This is the one thing I have to do. I have this power, Finn. I have to use it. I can use the Force for the better, and yet I can’t even build my lightsaber. I’m so…” she looked for the right words, but still she couldn’t grasp at them. She was still struggling with her feelings. “I’m afraid. What if I can’t do it?”

“You’re human. You’re allowed to feel anger and greed and frustration, and all those bad things. I was selfish, too — I wanted to get you away, but I never looked at the bigger picture. And now I am. There’s balance in everything. It’s okay to be angry from time to time. It’s okay to be scared.”

When he finished, Rey was trying hard not to cry. She wanted more than just this comfort — she wanted to understand herself, she wanted to be able to accomplish the things she’d promised. It wasn’t just about her failure.

It was failing everyone else.

“Do you believe him?” Finn asked, finally, looking her in the eyes.

He didn’t need to say Ben’s name. It was all she had there, the thought that she’d kept it in the back of her mind.

Did she think Ben Solo would change?

Deep in her bones, she knew the answer. She was scared of it — of all the things that they both had left unsaid, of the strength of their bond, of the way their hands had touched or how they could fight in sync, without even sharing thoughts. She was afraid.

But it wasn’t up to her.

_If I go to him, Ben Solo will turn._

She’d told that to Luke, foolish and running off before she knew anything for certain. He’d turned for a second, but it hadn’t been enough. It hadn’t been enough to truly, really change him. Or maybe he was in that constant process, unsure, scared, just as she was.

That’s what she’d chosen to believe. Others would call it weakness. But she knew, deep down, that it made her stronger. In a world where everything was black and white, light and darkness, good and evil, Rey still managed to find the in between.

And that’s what would keep her going.

“I’ll finish what I started,” Rey finally told Finn. “And I’ll be there to meet you, at the end.”

Finn smiled. “I’ll see you, Rey.”

“May the Force be with you.”

Finn ended the call, and Rey was left once again alone.

It was time to face her fears.


	41. Chapter 41

Ben saw Rey the next day when he was training.

Training wasn’t the right word for it — he was more pretending than anything else. All night, he’d stayed restless, barely sleeping, wondering about everything else.

For the first time, he hadn’t dreamed about Han falling. But he’d dreamed of him as a child, still in his parent’s house. It was such an odd memory for Ben. He was so small, he barely remembered what that was like. But the two of them were together, preparing for a trip. And Ben watched as his mother smiled back at him.

It was enough to jolt him awake at dawn, his back sweaty, his hands clammy and cold as if he’d gotten a fever. He started training early, swinging one of the old lightsabers around, just to make sure he still remembered the movements and the balance. He was breathing hard by the time Rey reached him, looking at him from the top of the mountain.

Ben wasn’t sure if he had to speak first.

“How are you feeling?” He said, deciding it was the safest topic.

“Better,” Rey said. Her eyes were puffy, like she’d been crying.

She picked up the lightsaber from her belt, toying around with it.

“We can train,” she said.

Ben only nodded, his heart hammering inside his ribcages, more loudly than it ought to be. Ben doubted Rey could hear it, but he was still unsure.

Where to begin?, he wondered. Was there even a way to fix it?

Rey activated her lightsaber. Hers was Luke’s green lightsaber, while his was blue. He corrected his posture, and so did she, and slowly, they started moving in circles, blades around each other.

The first hit was like a spark of light.

They went back and forth, their feet against the ground. He swung left, right, and then he realized that she was going faster than him, and he didn’t have to go easy. He didn’t know why he thought that in the first place — every single time they’d fought together, Rey was brutal, strong and merciless. He’d seen her back in the throne room, screaming and ready to fight, swinging her lightsaber with a mighty force. He was always more calculating, measuring his steps, careful and deliberate in his fights.

Rey accelerated, and he met her speed. Her swings were easy, well trained, her skills with the staff transporting easily to the lightsaber. She turned, swinging low, and he blocked her. She feinted right, and he blocked her again, his sword clashing against hers. Thunder rolled in the background, announcing another storm to come.

“Thank you,” she said, after a while, not meeting his eyes. “For taking care of me while I was sick.”

He tried to go over her shoulder, she raised her sword.

“It’s not a problem,” he said. “As I said, building your first saber is hard.”

“You built yours.”

She turned around, a full 360º spin, meeting him close, her back turned.

“I was sick for a whole week after that,” he confessed.

She raised an eyebrow. “And no one took care of you.”

He shrugged. He was used to it — the Dark side didn’t coddle anybody, it didn’t have time. You were either strong enough to survive it or you’d perish. That was the way he’d always lived.

Except he knew now there was an inherent weakness to it, too. He was in a never ending struggle to overcome everything else.

“I was scared, too,” Rey finally confessed, this time, meeting his eyes.

He stopped for a second, but Rey was quick — she swung the lightsaber over him, and he had to block it, stammering back. He realized it was because neither of them could truly speak to each other in a regular way, a way that didn’t make them want to blow something up.

Rey was using this training as an excuse.

“When I first discovered this power, I didn’t know what to do,” Rey continued, and they kept on training, dancing circles around each other, their blades meeting in clashes. “I was scared. I was no one — I grew up in the deserts of Jakku among old ships and broken remains of the Empire, and all I’d known were the stories of the Jedi.” She swung around, skipping low. Ben replied to her movement with one of his own, going forward. “And then you showed up.”

The girl, he’d called her. The girl with the droid. He had no idea who she was, but she was important enough to connect to his lightsaber. To flee the First Order. To defy everything he’d known.

And then he’d tried to breach her mind, and she’d breached his instead.

Always too strong.

“I was scared it’s what I’d become,” Rey said. “And then the Force connected us, and I had a purpose again — I was not meant to save the world. But I’d bring back Luke. When I couldn’t, I thought it’d be you.” She gritted her teeth, moved them to a faster speed, determined. His concentration was almost fully to the battle, his muscles aching with the exercise, but hanging on to every single of her words. “But you didn’t turn. And that’s what kept me, every single day. I’d failed at that one thing I was supposed to do. I was supposed to save one person. Not the whole galaxy.”

She paused, taking a deep breath, and then attacked again.

“I’m scared,” she said. “I can’t do it on my own.”

“I know,” he told her quietly. “It’s what they told, me too.” He was quiet, trying to gather the words. But somehow, the fighting helped. The swinging of his hands, the blade firm, his muscles struggling. It was easier to say the things that he was fighting his entire life. “I thought I was going to do something great. But I’ve never been great at anything. They wanted me to reestablish the Jedi, to be some kind of legacy that I never could be. And the only way to get that power was through the dark.”

Rey nodded. She feinted left this time, jumping over him. He met her blade in the air, blocking it in the sky, and when he looked back, there was a fierceness in her eyes, a competitiveness blooming.

“I thought I was alone,” Ben told her. “Until you came along.”

He swallowed hard, but Rey didn’t give him room to breathe. She swung her lightsaber close to his hurt shoulder, and he struggled to keep up, meeting her half way.

“You made me want to try to be something else,” he said. “And you believed. You believed I could change.”

“Anyone can change,” she said.

“But I was wrong, too. Back in the throne room, I still didn’t know what I wanted. And I thought…”

“You thought I’d turn, too.”

“We were both wrong.”

But even with the pain of the remembrance, how he felt, the power surging through his veins at that one moment, where everything was right in the universe.

He’d give everything to have the sensation again.

“I’m sorry,” he was the one to say it first. Something sparked in Rey’s eyes, but he kept going. “I never meant to hurt you.”

“You still did.”

“I know,” he said quietly, with only the wind and the island as testimony of his words. “Ever since I got here, I kept coming back to it.” He gulped. “I never told you what I saw in the dark.”

Rey was listening.

“I saw my father,” Ben said. “And down there, there was nothing left for me. All I knew, it was all gone.” He took another breath, and Rey moved her feet and they circled around each other. “But there was you. I could help you. And that’s what I wanted.”

He knew he was hoping for too much. Grounding that one element in his life, the one person who’d understood — the one person who didn’t look away while he was in the dark.

Rey brought the light to him, and he was going to accept it.

“I was so sure you’d turn,” Rey told him, her lips drawn in a tight line. She moved the lightsaber in an arc above, and he blocked it. “I was so, so sure, Ben. And it broke my heart when you turned away.”

“We could’ve had everything,” he said. He met her eyes with his. He wasn’t wrong — he knew, that if she’d accepted, they were going to conquer everything. Let the First Order burn down, let everything else beyond what they knew end. Build a new beginning.

“But it’s not what I wanted.”

“I know that now,” he said. And he did, deep down. He was too tired to discuss. He turned off the sword, standing panting, looking at her.

Rey turned off her lightsaber, and both of them faced each other. The rain started pouring on them just as the thunder had announced, and Ben felt himself being drenched by it.

He let it.

“I’ve been running my entire life,” Ben told her, between deep breaths. “From something. But never toward anything.”

“I know how you feel,” she replied.

The silence that stretched between them lasted an eternity, and Ben didn’t know what else he could say. What he could tell her, about what he’d seen and what he’d learned, but he felt like the words were not going to be enough.

So once more, he opened himself to the bond. Not just seeing her in front of him, but feeling that connection between them both, deeper and more ancient than anything he ever felt. And he let it flow, what he’d seen.

Ben Solo opened himself completely for the first time.

He let Rey see his moments of shame, his turn to the dark, his crippling fear, his anger and his attacks. The fear that nothing would ever turn right, and then the way he’d turn to anger to hide it. His usual response, anger in his blood. He let her see his killings and Han, dying, by his own eyes. He watched his father vanish once again, deep in the pit, the act tearing him in half.

And he let her see the rest, the things that he was still conflicted about — the things that he never wanted anyone else to see. The things that Snoke had taught him to hide, because they were weaknesses. His pause before his mother. His heart breaking when he saw Chewbacca again, and even the memories in Millennium Falcon, and seeing Luke again.

All at once, he was just fifteen years old again, in the dark, scared.

Luke was towering over him, with the lightsaber, and he could almost hear his uncle’s thoughts — as he took in what Ben was thinking, of the dark trying to grasp through him, his fear and the uncontrollable anger, always lashing out, hoping to defend himself.

It was gone in a moment, and he was raw once again, stripped to his essence, and nothing holding him back. He’d told everything.

When he closed the bond once again, he felt something hot in his cheek. He put his hand to it, and he hadn’t realized he was holding back tears. They mixed in with the rain that kept pouring, and he let it be.

Rey opened her mouth, staring. Ben expected her to run — maybe to turn back, maybe to just step back and not say anything else. He didn’t expect her to understand exactly. Rey was better than him. Even though the universe had treated her badly, she’d never given up. She’d always kept waiting and waiting.

Instead, Rey stepped forward.

“I felt this way my entire life,” she said quietly, and he felt like the entire island was holding its breath, waiting. “Alone.”

Ben knew the sensation. He’d recognized it in her, long before. That sensation of waiting, of being burdened. They’d run away with different reasons and sought different answers, but they ended up in the same place. The loneliness that reached far, as they stood apart in different sides of the Force. As an abyss opened up between them.

As they reached, but never truly found anything.

“I’m less alone when I’m with you,” Ben replied.

His eyes met Rey’s.

And then she did the only thing he didn’t expect her to do.

She came forward and kissed him.


	42. Chapter 42

Rey never thought this was something she’d want.

But as her lips met Ben’s, and his hands automatically slid to her waist, pulling her in, and her hands were on his shoulders, resting, and that was all that was for that moment. The whole island, the sea below, everything, just gone, and there was just Rey and Ben and that powerful bond between them. Something she had thought undeciphered, uniting between them both, but only pulling towards each other.

He broke the kiss first, gasping for breath, his dark eyes meeting hers, slightly confused — lost, like she’d known it all along. The rain kept pouring over them, but Rey wasn’t bothered by it. She was being washed clean, body and soul.

“Rey,” he whispered so close to her, and she felt it echoing in her bones.

“Ben.” It was all she replied, so quiet, as the rest of the world vanished for that couple of seconds, where they were together, and nothing else mattered.

There was that glimpse of light in him again, that one hope she’d held on for so long, ever since the bond had connected them. But through it, she didn’t feel just the conflict — she felt resolve, as if that light was there to stay.

Balance, she felt, deep within her bones.

She pulled him for another kiss again, their lips meeting slow and sure, and Rey knew that was all she needed, his hands touching her back, her hair, and hers exploring him, too. Combing back his dark hair, holding his face there with hers, their breaths tingling.

His lips were cold against her, trembling just slightly. The rain kept beating them down, falling, the skies cracking open above them, until she couldn’t feel her arms anymore. They both were dripping wet, but neither chose to move, staying together beneath the rain.

Rey started shivering.

“Let’s go inside,” she said, and she pulled Ben along with her.

The rain kept beating them down until they entered the protected hut. Inside, it was still cold, but she already felt a little better. She started a fire immediately as Ben closed the last door, and the only sound inside was the rain dripping on the roof and the cackling of the fire.

Ben didn’t move. He kept standing at the door, unsure of where to move. Rey sat by the fire, watching the flames.

It’d been an impulse, something she didn’t entirely understand at that moment — but as she understood Ben in that moment where he opened up, when she’d finally grasped what made them both so alike, it was the only thing she could think of doing.

Rey had been alone her entire life. She didn’t remember much from her parents. She’d grown up by herself, in the Jakku desert, always fending for herself and on her own. She didn’t remember what it was like having someone she could trust — and then there was Finn, and the Resistance, and everyone who had welcomed her with arms open.

But still, none of them had truly understood. Up until Ben — up until she told him about asking to see her parents, and seeing nothing, and having that terrible feeling in the pit of her stomach that she was never going to find anyone who knew what that was like. That isolation, the burden, and everything else that she couldn’t tell anyone else.

He was right. She felt a little less lonely together with him.

“I feel like I need to ask,” he broke the silence first, “Are you still feverish?”

Out of all the things Rey expected him to say, that wasn’t it. She looked up and gave him a half smile.

“I think I’m fine.”

He looked even more confused, though he was trying to hide it.

Not even Rey understood truly her impulse to do that.

So she did something that was familiar — she reached out a hand.

Slowly, he grasped it. She felt the touch of his fingers in hers, still cold from the rain, still slick. She pulled him down to sit next to her, and both of them stood with their backs to the stone, sitting staring at the small fire she’d started.

“So this is your normal reaction?” Ben asked, his voice deep.

“Are you mocking me?” she turned to look at him. “I can’t tell.”

There was a shadow of a smile on Ben’s face. And Rey knew that one day, she’d get to see it blossom in full. She just had to be willing to wait for it.

And Rey thought that she was.

She brushed her thumb against his lips, and they parted open. But Ben said nothing, waiting until Rey had settled — waiting until she decided, she realized.

Rey opened the bond once again, but instead of the previous confusion and anger and everything they had felt before that kept poisoning it before, this time, it felt clear. A little fluttery, unsure, but there was light in it. There were still so many things to talk about, but Rey had opened a new path for her, too. One she didn’t imagine she would take.

But one that she was also willing to try out.

The bond felt the same through Ben’s part — she could feel his uncertainty, his regret over so many things, the consequences. The choices he wished he hadn’t made.

“I never thought I’d see you again,” he said quietly, while she still had a hand near his lips. She could feel the words resonating from around her, but also the air coming from his body. She could feel the words as if they were her own. “I realized my mistake as soon as I went down to battle Luke. And at the end… I felt you.”

“I knew you were there,” Rey responded. She was still so confused about her feelings. A part of her had wanted to run away, to give up, to just let go. She’d tried, and failed. Another part of her wanted to keep trying, and wondering what would have happened if she’d taken his hand.

“I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do,” Ben told her. “I didn’t know how. It’d been so long.”

“It’s all up to you, Ben.”

“How an you tell everything apart?” He asked, his voice quiet. In that moment, they were stripped of their histories. Of what happened, and what they meant to the universe. They weren’t Jedi or Sith, or whatever it was in between. They weren’t dooming or saving the universe.

It was just the two of them, alone, together.

Rey held his hand.

“I will help you with that,” she told him. “As long as you’re willing.”

“I am.”

And those words were the only words that mattered to her. Rey squeezed his hand tighter, her heart fluttering.

When she leaned to kiss him again, she was sure. Their movement was slow and deliberate, and Rey took her time. Their hands joined together, and Ben held her against him, his fingers through her hair. Their lips met again, but there wasn’t a hunger, it was hesitating, and that made it so careful. Every single touch lasted forever, and the kiss went on and on, and that’s the only thing Rey kept wanting.

Before she realized, she’d moved to sit in front of him, passing her legs over his lap. Ben shuddered just slightly, and their eyes met, both of them discussing it silently. Their past, their present, their future. It was that easy to change it — it wasn’t just about Rey, it was about them. She remembered seeing him for the first time without the helmet. She had been curious. He was almost as young as she was, and he was powerful on the dark side. But she’d fought him back. He tried to pry information from her, but she’d gotten him instead, faster and quicker. And they’d danced towards each other, going in and going out, meeting and separating, all along.

Towards this one moment.

Rey kissed him again.

Not one moment she did stop, and she didn’t care to. It’s what she wanted, and as they progressed, Rey felt like that she was sure of one thing, for once.


	43. Chapter 43

When Ben woke up, it was still raining.

It took him a moment to realize where he was, but he could still hear the rain beating against the stones outside, but the fire had died down. The surroundings weren’t exactly familiar — but there was Rey, sprawled next to him in the bed.

He took a deep breath.

He never thought he’d be here. Out of all the things he had seen for his future, this wasn’t it. But as he observed Rey quietly, still sleeping, he couldn’t take his mind off her. Her back was filled with tiny freckles that he could connect with his fingers, like stars on the skies. Her chestnut hair wasn’t tied, and hung loosely on the pillow, and her breath was easy, quiet.

As if she could feel him observing, she turned. She blinked twice, still sleepy, and looked at him, face to face.

“Nightmare?” She asked.

“Yes,” he replied, not feeling like he needed to hide for once. Nightmares were weaknesses, a mind playing tricks.

“I have them too,” Rey said.

“What are yours about?”

She shrugged slightly. It was easy talking in the dark. Ben was scared that once it was light, once the rain had stopped, things would change again, and he wasn’t sure how they’d react. How it was going to be, from now on.

“Sometimes I dream I’m left back in Jakku,” she said. “That all of this is gone, and I never left there at all. That it was all in my head, all this time, and I’m going to have to get there, back inside a Destroyer and trade its parts, and live there, day after day, in the sand.”

He said nothing. They weren’t the same dreams as he had, but he understood the feeling of them. Life had given them something special — something unique, and to have that taken away… He couldn’t imagine what that would feel like.

“I just dream of the things I did,” he said. “And those I can’t change.”

She put her hand over his, grasping his fingers. They were warm against his, and Rey didn’t look away.

“It’s never going to go away,” she said, and the truth hurt to acknowledge. “There are things that are going to follow you for the rest of your life. And that’s just the way it is.”

Ben looked at her eyes, and Rey simply stared back. There was a time when she wouldn’t have met him like this, with nothing separating them. But Rey had given him something he never had on his own — that spirit, that courage to fight whatever it was, whatever was thrown in his path. Rey hadn’t backed down, even when she’d failed.

“When you had the vision,” he asked, slowly because he wasn’t sure what words should come next, “What did you see?”

Rey blinked in surprise.

“I saw you here,” she said. “On Ahch-To, with me. And you were wielding a sword of the light. It was so quick, but it was certain.”

Ben wasn’t sure that was ever going to happen. His vision had worked differently. He hadn’t seen her turn, not really — but he’d seen her by his side, as she was now.

“What are you thinking?” Rey said, pushing back his hair. The gesture almost made him freeze, but after everything, it was comforting. To have these small touches, these reassurances he’d never experienced.

“You were right,” he replied quietly. “There is no changing the past.”

“But you can choose what you do from now on,” Rey told him. “That’s what matters.”

He still couldn’t put into words. The fact that he thought he might never go fully to the light. That wouldn’t happen for him. He’d spent too long already in the dark, and he wasn’t sure he knew how to be like her. But he could try to find one thing he’d been missing all along, balance.

Ben put a finger to her forehead, and let her glimpse into his thoughts. Rey paid attention to it, concentrating, and it took a while before any of them said anything.

“It’s not that easy,” Ben said, meeting her eyes. It was too dark inside, the night still pouring, but he could trace every single freckle in her nose and cheek. They were subtle, light brown, but being this close, he could count them all.

“It’s never going to be easy,” she answered sincerely. “That doesn’t mean I won’t be with you.”

“You will?”

“Every step of the way,” Rey replied. She smiled at him, just slightly. “It took me a long time to see it, too.”

He waited for her to continue.

She looked at his lips before answering, her eyes gazing back to him. He wanted to kiss her again, right then — to feel his mouth melting into hers, her warm skin against his, her fingers through his hair and holding his back.

“I thought it was all I had to do,” Rey said. “Bring you to the light. Make you see it, make you turn. But it’s just not how the world works.” She sighed. “I’d spent so much time wondering that I didn’t realize that I was wrong, too. It’s about—”

“Balance,” he completed for her.

She held her fingers up, her palm stretched. His hand met hers, the tips of their fingers tickling with this strange electricity. Rey stared at their hands, then back at him.

Darkness and light.

And each of them held a little bit of both.

They’d been through a lot, but for the first time, he didn’t feel anger or fear, or anything that inherently compelled him to the dark side. At that one moment, he’d gotten the peace he was longing for, something he never knew he wanted.

With Rey by his side, Ben felt like everything was in its rightful place.

“You’re not alone, Ben Solo.”

He brushed back her hair, holding her as delicately as he could. As if she was going to turn into mist under his touch, and he’d be left alone once again.

But nothing happened.

Rey smiled, the light of the entire world.

“Neither are you.”

He kissed her again, and they held each other tight, until neither could tell what was light and what was dark.


	44. Chapter 44

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the last chapter from Rey's POV in the fic. Thanks for following!

The next morning, Rey woke up with a renewed purpose.

She felt it, in her bones, and she knew she was ready to face anything, like she’d just conquered her worst fears. In fact, she hadn’t exactly, but with Ben by her side, his dark hair uncombed and sleeping on her bed, there was an energy that she’d never felt before.

Whatever happened, she knew they’d be together. Side by side. And she could do anything.

Rey went outside, ignoring the whispers of the Caretakers. Any sign of rain was gone that morning, the sky a clear blue as the two suns rose in the horizon. She looked at them for a few seconds, the horizon that stretched beyond, like her future.

Then she went back inside the hut, leaving the door open for the sunlight to stream inside, and she took her cracked lightsaber in her hands.

When Rey examined the crystal inside her sword, it was dimmed and broken.

She unlatched it from its place in the sword, observing how it became colorless once again, just like it’d been back at the Ilum caves. She closed her eyes, reaching out for it, but there was only emptiness before her. While she’d had a connection with it, she’d broken it. There was nothing out there but the feeling that it was dead.

“What is it?” Ben asked, and Rey almost jumped.

He wasn’t wearing a shirt, sitting up on her bed. This time, she examined him without feeling completely guilty or at loss. There were still circles under his eyes, like it’d take years to wipe them away, but he looked flushed, not as pale as before.

He raised an eyebrow when she kept on looking. “What is it? Are you going to tell me to cover myself again?”

“The caretakers might see you,” Rey said.

He shrugged. “I’m sure they’ve seen worse.”

“Ben, this is a sacred island,” Rey gasped, shaking her head. When she looked up at him, he had that little tug of a smile in the corner of his mouth.

“I’m telling you, that makes it worse,” he said.

“So did you play a lot of games around the other Jedi?”

Ben had the grace to blush. She’d never seen him so open like this, red creeping up his pale cheeks.

“Skies, you did!” Rey laughed. “Don’t tell me. You got your first kiss in Jedi camp.”

“Rey, that’s—”

“So did Luke try to interrupt you as well?” Rey joked.

“Rey, don’t,” he said, and there was genuine pain in his voice.

Rey immediately remembered what happened the night Luke had thought about killing Ben, and Ben had turned. Burning the whole temple, and the other students dead.

She doubted Ben wanted to be reminded of any of those experiences.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“No, I am,” Ben replied. “More than you know.”

He sat in front of her, legs crossed, and he gestured towards the lightsaber. Rey handed it to him, along with the dead crystal. Ben turned it in his hands, seeing the cracked metal.

“It’s useless,” Rey said. “We’ll have to go back there.”

“Maybe not,” Ben replied.

He closed his eyes and concentrated. Flying in through the door, Rey watched as another colorless crystal zapped inside, and Ben caught it in his hands.

He offered it to her.

“I took this one for me. It’s from the same place as you took yours.”

Rey reached out for the crystal, her fingers brushing against his. Unlike her previous crystal, which felt dead, this one had a clean slate.

“I thought you said you didn’t need it,” Rey said, looking up at him.

“I needed one to bleed,” he corrected. “But I couldn’t do it.”

Rey took a deep breath, and tried feeling her connection to the crystal. It felt strange, as if the connection in the cave had been much stronger.

But she’d broken that crystal and that lightsaber, drained it of her previous connection, and there was nothing there for her to go back.

She knew she wasn’t going to get anything here on her room, so she took it outside, following the same whispers she had when she first landed on Ahch-To. The ancient ground called to Rey, and she followed it, until it took her to the ancient tree in the middle of the island.

It was now dead, its roots black with carbon from having been burned on the storm. But still, the roots had power, something she could feel within herself, if she was willing to call for it.

She felt the power of the crystal simmering beneath its surface, ready to be reaped. Ready to be made into something new. When she turned around, Ben had followed her. She stood in the middle of the ancient ground, in its sacred place, and she reached out her hand to Ben.

He let it hang, for a minute, but then he took it, and Rey pulled him inside the circle.

At once, it was like lightning through her body. She slid the crystal between their united palms, and she held his other hand. The crystal pulsed above her palms, and it connected her to Ben.

“Rey,” Ben said to her, his dark eyes meeting her brown ones. He looked much younger now in the daylight, the scar cutting through his face. “I’m not the one who’s supposed to do this. You are.”

“I won’t save the world on my own, Ben.”

“It’s your destiny,” he told her. “Become who you’re meant to be.”

She felt his words echoed within herself, within her very own soul. As she gripped both of his hands, she understood. She’d spent her whole life looking somewhere else, towards the horizon, towards something or someone that would take her to a different place. She looked for her salvation everywhere — in Han, in Luke, in Ben, so she wouldn’t have to carry it on her own.

But it was time she stopped looking.

There was no one who was going to carry her burdens for her. They were hers, and her own, and if she was to face the First Order and give hope to the universe, she had to do it herself.

But no matter what, she wouldn’t have to do it alone.

She was never going to feel alone again.

She reached out, and opened herself once more, without fear, without hate and anger, free of all the emotions that cornered her into the dark. Ben opened up, too, again letting all those feelings fly into the bond, and then Rey took them and reached out to the Force, the crystal wrapped on her hands.

The whole universe was at the reach of her fingertips. There was the island below them, the darkness of the caves, the light of the temple, the ancient stones, and the cold sea that wrapped around the planet, and Rey felt like she was stretching, her whole being expanded, and she understood it — she understood what it meant to be here, to be so tiny a light in the universe that in a blink she would be gone.

But that same blink could ripple the world and that the change she brought would stay for a long time, even after she was gone. Rey was tiny among the rest of the galaxy, a speckle of dust, but she’d bring change if she wanted to. She’d bring light. She felt Ben beside her, expanding too, and it was like she could see the inside of him — the representation of what he stood on the Force.

They were opposites of each other. Rey could see herself standing in the light, but there was darkness inside her too, near her heart. And Ben was almost all dark, but from where his scar stood, irradiated the brightest light she’d ever seen. And with their hands together, all of it canceled out.

Rey felt her feet rising with the Force and the winds, lifting her slowly as she spun, her hands still holding Ben’s, and she let the crystal know how she felt at that moment.

When the light expanded to the crystal, Rey and Ben fell to the ground.

Between them, there was the Kyber crystal, and it pulsated in a color Rey had never seen before. It shone bright silver — a color between white and black, and she could feel tiny veins of dark and light inside it.

Rey picked it up in her hands, observing the crystal. It was almost as big as her hand. She definitely could break it in two. One for each.

She offered him the crystal, and he took it, the delicate fingers in his hands studying it with care.

Ben looked up to meet her eyes. “Now the swords.”

Rey nodded, licking her lips. The images on the Jedi texts were clear — two swords, for true balance. Light could not win without the dark, and dark would not win without the light. But two sabers, forged by different people, would be unbalanced, no matter what.

That’s when Rey had the idea.

“Do you trust me?”

Rey extended her hand for the crystal.

Ben put it back on her palms before looking into her eyes.

“With my life.”

She smiled, and began to work at once.

The answer was staring at her all along, and Rey had refused to see it. With Ben observing, she started unlatching the cracked lightsaber, separating it with the force, feeling its fluid movements. This was never supposed to be just one lightsaber.

Slowly, she began it again, this time, separating into two blades that interconnected, that could be wielded together or separately, each holding a single part of the crystal. And once again, Rey took down what was left of Anakin Skywalker’s lightsaber and began to work, weaving it into a new design.

The metal wielded for her, because it could feel its true master. She took it, piece by piece, and she told her story and the universe.

She was the daughter of junk traders, a tiny speck of dust in an universe much bigger than she was, and she poured all the things she’d learned and loved and fought for. The right side of the lightsaber was hers, and she let it know her. She showed it her biggest fears, the engulfing Jakku desert, the feeling of loneliness and looking to the horizon, of waiting for something she was never sure would come. It was feeling empty, and angry, but also feeling true.

But it was her and much more. It was her ancestors in the Force — the lightsaber was Han and Leia, it was Luke Skywalker, it was Poe Dameron and Rose Tico, and it was Finn.

It was Ben Solo, into the light.

It was all of them, her hope, the thing keeping her together. They had faith in her, and she would deposit her faith back into the lightsaber.

This was going to be their salvation.

Then it was Ben Solo’s turn, and Rey molded the left side of the lightsaber to him. But it wasn’t the illusion she’d crafted, back before the throne room — it was him as she truly saw him. His fear, and his legacy and his burden, and his pain and his regrets. It was all of that dark, but it was that single ray of light. His honor, his willingness, his resilience. It was him changing, slowly, becoming more himself. Learning how to be.

And both of them learning how to stand on their own.

Rey added the kyber crystals last, breaking it in half and adding one to each side.

When Rey was done, there was a single tear escaping her eye. Ben was the one to reach out and wipe it, and she smiled as she offered the left half of the lightsaber to him.

Slowly, ceremoniously, he took it. Rey watched closely, still tense — maybe she’d messed it up again, maybe she’d done something wrong.

Ben activated the lightsaber, and a silvery glow sprawled from the saber. At the bottom of the saber, close to the handle, threads of darkness spread, giving the saber an eerie glow. Ben held it in front of his face, and it was so like him that Rey couldn’t believe it hadn’t been his saber all along.

When she activated hers, it matched — a silver glow, but white threads that poured in from the handle.

Matching lightsabers, each holding one half of the other. Used together, more powerful than all of the others.

When Ben gave her a smile, the first she’d ever seen, Rey knew.

She found exactly where she belonged.


	45. Chapter 45

Ben Solo slept soundly for the first time in years.

He only woke up when the rays of the sun were already grazing through the window. The bed was warm but empty, and it took him a while to get up and dress himself.

It was his last day on Ahch-To.

He dressed in his usual clothes, all in black, but lighter and more flexible than the First Order uniforms. His lightsaber was resting on the table — his newly made lightsaber, that fit in his hands and balanced him out like his other lightsabers never could.

He activated it one last time, watching the silver glow cut through the empty air, the familiar buzz comforting.

Ben’s footsteps took him directly to the Millennium Falcon. He found Rey sitting at the cockpit, making last minute adjustments before they could leave.

He took her in — her flushed cheeks, her brows furrowed in concentration, her hair tied in a different manner than he’d seen before, with two buns interconnected on the back of her head. Rey spun on the chair, turning around to face him.

Ben sat down in the chair. He didn’t remember a time when he was comfortable coming here, but now, it wasn’t as heavy as before. He didn’t feel like he was suffocating.

Maybe it was all right to believe that things were indeed changing.

“Ben, look at me,” Rey said, putting her hand under his chin and making him turn. “You know you don’t have to do this.”

“I can’t stay here at the island.”

It was a conversation they didn’t think of having before. But if Rey left, there was nothing for him here. If she was to face Snoke, so would he. And if he had to die for her, he would.

He had sworn that he’d help her, no matter what happened to him.

“I know,” she said. “I’m not asking you to stay. I’m asking whether you think you’re ready.”

Ben didn’t know. It was too soon, even though it was just a couple of weeks, at most. It was enough that his whole life had changed, turned upside down never to return.

He couldn’t remember what it was like sitting on the throne and being Supreme Leader anymore.

“And if I’m not?” He asked.

Rey mulled the answer over. “Then we’ll find somewhere for you,” she said. “I can’t leave my friends waiting longer.”

“I am going,” Ben said quickly, reassuring. The last thing he was going to ask was for her to wait, once again. To leave things unfinished because she had to wait for him.

Ben was stronger than that.

The feeling was still sitting at the pit of his stomach, unsettling. He had internalized it for so long now that it took a few seconds to realize that what he was feeling was fear once again.

Fear of leaving this security that he’d found, this place in the galaxy where he knew where to stand. Everything else before him was unknown, with darkness at its edges, and once he left it, there were going to be no reassurances.

“It’s always going to be like this, isn’t it?” He looked down at his ungloved hands. One, flesh and bone, the other mechanical fingers he’d never be able to truly replace.

“You can’t change the past,” Rey told him.

“Is it ever going to be enough?” He looked up to meet her eyes again. Would he always be measuring up, wondering if it’d ever be good for him? If it’d ever be enough to repay all of his past sins?

He didn’t know if in the end, all the rest of the universe would always see him the way they’d seen Vader.

“Ben,” Rey said, bringing him back to reality. “There will always be people who won’t believe you, but that’s not what matters. What matters is here.”

She laid a single hand over his heart. He felt it beat faster under the touch of her fingertips, his blood flushing to his face.

“You can’t weight it,” Rey said. “Maybe it’ll be years from now, and you’ll still be dreaming of what you did in the past. You’ll always, always be trying to make up for it.”

Ben set his jaw. He couldn’t undo his mistakes, but he knew the truth of her words as well. That in the end, he would spend the rest of his life adjusting to it, undoing the darkness he’d spread, little by little. Bringing the light to the dark. The true balance.

“It’s going to take your entire life,” Rey smiled, caressing his scar. “And it’ll get heavier, from time to time. But it’s going to be okay.”

Ben took her hand, and kissed her knuckles. Rey leaned in to the touch, her eyebrows still furrowed in that preoccupied manner.

He never thought he’d be the one to seek this kind of redemption, or to even want it. He thought those were not for him, too sure of his path. But the truth was that for the first time, he could choose his path on his own. And no matter how hard or arduous or how strange it would be, or even if it would take most of his life, it was his path to choose.

From now on till forever, he’d be the only one to get to choose his destiny.

“I’ll be with you,” Rey said. “Always.”

He leaned in for one last kiss on her lips. Rey smiled, adjusting the last things before they left the course to go back to the Resistance, to end the First Order once and for all. The first of many tasks Ben was sure he would face if he continued on his path to redemption.

It was a small first step. The road was long, but he was ready for the journey.

When Rey jumped to lightspeed, Ben took her hand.

He wasn’t alone anymore.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for following this fic and reading up to here! It was a pleasure to write it, and please leave a note if you enjoyed it. I love reading everyone's comments.
> 
> Make sure you check all my other Reylo fanfiction on this account, or reach out to me on twitter @laurampohl. My debut novel comes out next year, so it'll be great seeing readers around. May the Force be with you.


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